THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


PAULINE  FORE  MOFFITT 
LIBRARY 

UmVERSITT  OF  CALIFORNIA 


OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

E.  F.  BENSON 


MY   FATHER,   ^ET.   50 


Frontispiece 


pUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

1867-1896 


I   HY 

E.  F.  BENSON 

AUTHOR  OF  "dodo,"  "DAVID  BLAIZE,' 
"MICHAEL,"  "queen  LUCIA,"  ETC. 


WITH  PORTRAITS 


NEW  XSJr    YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


'B5/I5 


COPYRIGHT,    1921, 
BY   GEORGE  H.   DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
Wellington  and  the  Beginning       ...      18 

CHAPTER  II 
Lincoln  and  Early  Emotions    ....      82 

CHAPTER  III 
Lincoln  and  Demoniacal  Possession      .      .      52 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  New  Home  at  Truro 62 

CHAPTER  V 
Private  School  and  Holidays    ....      80 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Dunce's  Progress 108 

CHAPTER  Vn 
The  Widening  Horizons 137 

CHAPTER  VIII 
Lambeth  and  Addington      .      .      .      .       .     163 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IX 

PAGI 

The  Fall  of  the  Fhist  Leaf    .      .      .      .189 

CHAPTER  X 
Cambridge 209 

CHAPTER  XI 
The  Circle  Is  Broken   ......    287 

CHAPTER  XH 
An  Arch^ological  Excursion  ....    255 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Athens  and  Dodo     .      .      .      .      .      .      .    276 

CHAPTER  XIV 
Athens  and  Egypt 303 

Index      ..........    325 


PORTRAITS 

My  Father,  aet.  50 Frontispiece 

PAQI 

My  Mother,  aet.  20 19 


Elizabeth  Cooper:  "Beth",  aet.  78  .      .      .  69 

E.  F.  Benson,  aet  19 119 

"His  Grace" 169 

"Her  Grace" 219 

E.  F.  Benson,  aet.  22 269 

E.  F.  Benson,  aet.  26 287 


OUR   FAMILY  AFFAIRS 


OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 


CHAPTER    I 

WELLINGTON   AND  THE    BEGINNING 

MY  father  was  headmaster  of  Wellington  College, 
where  and  when  I  was  born,  but  of  him  there,  in 
spite  of  his  extraordinarily  forcible  personality,  I  have 
no  clear  memory,  though  the  first  precise  and  definite 
recollection  that  I  retain  at  all,  heaving  out  of  nothing- 
ness, was  connected  with  him,  for  it  certainly  was  he, 
who,  standing  by  the  table  in  the  window  of  the  dining- 
room  with  an  open  newspaper  in  his  hand,  told  me  never 
to  forget  this  day  on  which  the  Franco-German  war 
came  to  an  end.  Otherwise  as  regards  him,  somebody 
swept  by  in  an  academic  cap  and  gown,  a  figure  not  at 
all  awe-inspiring  as  he  became  to  me  very  soon  after,  but 
simply  a  rather  distinguished  natural  phenomenon  to  be 
regarded  in  the  same  light  as  rain  or  wall-paper  or  sun- 
shine. Cudgel  my  memory  as  I  may,  I  can  evoke  no 
other  figure  of  him  at  Wellington,  except  as  something 
shining  and  swift;  an  external  object  whirling  along  on 
an  orbit  as  inconjecturable  as  those  of  the  stars,  and 
wholly  uninteresting.  He  had  a  study  on  the  left  of  the 
front  door  into  the  Master's  Lodge,  where  there  was  a 
big  desk  with  a  shiny  circular  cover.  I  know  that  I  was 
taken  in  there  to  say  good  night  to  him,  but  the  most 

13 


14  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIIIS 

remarkable  thing  there  was  the  big  desk  with  large 
handles,  and  perhaps  a  boy  standing  by  it,  mountainous 
in  height  and  looking  extremely  polite  and  gentle.  There 
was  the  same  ceremony  every  evening:  my  father  kissed 
me,  put  his  hand  on  my  head  and  said,  "God  bless  you 
and  make  you  a  good  boy  always."  The  most  significant 
detail  of  that  ritual  was  that  my  father's  face  was  rough, 
not  smooth  like  the  face  of  my  mother  and  of  Beth,  and 
that  there  lingered  round  him  or  the  room  a  smell  of 
books  and  a  smell  of  soap. 

A  little  later  on  than  that  there  came  a  period  when 
for  half  an  hour  before  bedtime  my  two  sisters  and  I 
(for  the  present  the  youngest)  used  to  visit  him  in  that 
same  study  while  he  drew  entrancing  pictures  for  us, 
each  in  turn.  One  of  these  I  found  only  the  other  day: 
it  represents  a  hill  crowned  with  a  castle  and  a  church, 
in  front  of  which  is  a  small  knight  waving  his  sword  in 
the  direction  of  a  terrifying  dragon,  homed  and  tailed, 
who  is  flying  across  the  sky.  Below  in  minute  capitals 
runs  a  rhyming  legend.  Or  I  went  to  the  College  chapel, 
though  not  often,  and  by  way  of  a  treat,  and  there 
was  the  same  figure  in  a  surplice,  in  a  stall  on  the  right 
hand  of  the  door  of  entrance.  I  believe  I  was  there  on 
the  last  Sunday  of  his  Headmastership  and  that  they 
sang  a  hymn  which  he  wrote. 

Emotionally,  I  have  no  picture-book  illustrated  with 
memories  of  my  first  five  years,  but  externally  I  have  im- 
pressions that  possess  a  haunting  vividness  comparable 
only  to  the  texture  of  dreams,  when  dreams  are  tumul- 
tuously  alive.  All  these  (and  I  think  the  experience  is 
universal)  were  external  happenings,  trivial  in  them- 
selves, but  far  more  lasting  than  emotional  affairs  in  later 
life.     Never  shall  I  forget,  though  I  have  forgotten  so 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  15 

much  of  far  vaster  import  since  then,  the  discovery  of  an 
adder  on  the  croquet  lawn  outside  the  nursery  windows. 
The  gardener  attacked  it  with  the  shears  that  he  had  been 
using  for  clipping  the  edges  of  the  grass:  he  made  fine 
chopping  gestures,  and  presently  disappeared  into  the 
belt  of  wood  with  the  adder  slung  on  the  blades.  There 
is  the  vignette:  something  terribly  vivid  but  girt  about 
with  mist.  I  have  no  other  knowledge  of  the  gardener 
but  that  he  killed  an  adder  with  his  shears  and  went  into 
the  belt  of  wood  with  the  corpse  dangling  thereon. 

There  was  an  evening  when,  having  had  my  bath  in  the 
nursery  I  escaped  from  the  hands  of  my  nurse,  slippery 
with  soapy  water,  and  looked  out  of  the  nursery  window. 
Then  a  miracle  burst  upon  my  astounded  eyes,  for, 
though  it  was  bedtime  my  mother  was  in  the  act  of  put- 
ting her  foot  on  her  own  croquet  ball,  and  with  a  smart 
stroke  sending  the  adversary  into  the  limbo  of  a  flower- 
bed. That  was  allowed  by  the  rule  of  1870  or  there- 
abouts, and  it  gave  me  the  impression  of  consummate  skill 
and  energy.  My  mother,  you  must  understand,  stood 
quite  still  with  her  own  ball  in  chancery  below  her  foot. 
The  concussion  of  her  violent  mallet  sent  the  adversary 
into  a  flower-bed,  and  the  calceolarias  nodded.  .  .  . 
Then  Beth,  my  nurse,  caught  me,  and  rubbed  me  dry, 
and  I  went  to  bed  with  the  delicious  sense  of  my  mother's 
magnificence,  and  the  marvel  of  people  still  playing  cro- 
quet in  daylight  when  I  had  to  go  to  bed.  I  think  that 
this  occasion  was  the  first  on  which  I  recognised  my 
mother  as  having  a  personality  of  her  own.  The  next 
confused  me  again,  for  on  some  birthday  of  one  of  us, 
or  at  Christmas,  Beth  told  me  that  Abracadabra  was 
coming,  and  that  I  mustn't  be  frightened.  I  was  then 
taken  to  see  my  mother,  who  was  lying  down  in  her  bed- 


16  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

room,  and  said  that  she  was  very  sleepy,  and  I  returned 
to  the  nursery.  Shortly  afterwards  there  was  a  general 
hubbub  in  the  house,  and  on  being  taken  downstairs  from 
the  nursery  into  the  hall,  I  saw  a  huge  bedizened  fairy 
standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace.  She  blew  a  piercing 
trumpet  at  intervals,  and  made  dance-steps  to  the  right 
and  left.  She  had  a  wonderful  hat  covered  with  lilies, 
and  a  dress  covered  with  jewels,  and  in  front  of  her 
was  a  thing  that  might  have  been  mistaken  for  the 
clothes-basket  out  of  which  Beth  took  clean  shirts  and 
socks,  but  it  could  not  possibly  have  been  that,  because  it 
gleamed  with  pure  gold.  A  sheet  lay  on  the  top  of  it, 
and  Abracadabra  blew  her  trumpet,  and  Beth,  holding  me 
close,  said,  "Eh,  dear,  don't  be  frightened;  it's  all  right!" 
Obviously  it  was  all  right;  for  to  put  an  end  to  all 
tearful  tendencies.  Abracadabra,  with  a  magnificent  ges- 
ture, withdrew  the  sheet,  and  hastily  presented  me  with  a 
clockwork  train,  just  what  I  had  always  wanted.  She 
turned  a  key  in  the  engine,  and  the  engine  then  capsized 
with  loud  buzzings,  but  when  Abracadabra  put  it  on  its 
wheels  again,  it  proceeded  to  draw  three  tin  carriages  after 
it.  And  it  was  mine,  the  very  thing  I  had  wanted,  and 
Abracadabra  smiled  as  she  gave  it  me,  and  I  thought  that 
her  face  was  rather  like  Mamma's.  But  the  likeness 
must  have  been  purely  accidental,  because  Mamma  was 
in  her  bedroom  feeling  sleepy.  And  when  Abracadabra 
went  through  the  door  into  the  kitchen  passage  blowing 
loudly  on  her  trumpet,  and  when,  after  a  few  excursions 
of  the  clockwork  train,  I  was  allowed  to  go  up  to  her 
room  again,  and  found  her  still  sleepy,  it  might  be  indeed 
considered  proved  that  she  was  not  Abracadabra.  Be- 
sides, when  I  told  her  about  Abracadabra's  visit,  she 
was  very  much  vexed  that  she  had  missed  her,  and  asked 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  17 

whether  Abracadabra  had  not  left  any  present  for  her, 
which  she  had  not.  That  is  the  first  clear  and  definite 
memory  I  have  of  Abracadabra,  and  also,  in  a  way,  it 
is  the  last,  for  when  next  that  amiable  fairy  visited  us,  I 
knew,  alas,  that  she  was  no  fairy  at  all,  but  my  mother, 
dressed  in  the  amazing  garb  of  fairyland.  But  though 
that  particular  brand  of  fairyland  was  finished  for  me, 
those  subsequent  occasions  were  girt  with  grandeur,  for  I, 
concealing  my  own  superior  knowledge,  must  pretend 
that  this  was  genuine  Abracadabra,  thus  indulging  and 
buttressing  the  belief  of  my  youngest  brother  Hugh,  who 
still,  innocent  thing,  had  no  grown-up  doubts  on  the  sub- 
ject. .  .  .  -'  found  those  selfsame  garments  only  lately 
in  a  trunk  stowed  away  in  an  attic  at  the  last  home  my 
mother  lived  in;  a  skirt  covered  with  sprays  of  artificial 
flowers,  a  bodice  and  stomacher  set  with  gems  of  pure 
glass,  a  hat  of  white  satin  embowered  in  flowers,  a  pair 
of  wings,  gauze  and  gold,  and  a  pair  of  high-heeled  shoes 
covered  with  gilt  paper.  They  were  moth-eaten  and 
mouldy,  and  it  was  scarcely  possible  for  the  most  senti- 
mental pilgrim  to  preserve  them.  Besides  I  had  the  mem- 
ory of  the  day  when  the  authentic  fairy  appeared  in  them, 
and  that  memory  was  sweeter  than  the  condition,  forty- 
five  years  later,  of  the  robes  themselves.  My  mother  had 
kept  them,  I  make  no  doubt,  when  her  own  days  of  Abra- 
cadabra were  over  by  reason  of  our  emergence  from  child- 
hood, in  the  hope  that  one  day  a  daughter  or  daughter-in- 
law  would  assume  them  again  for  the  joy  and  mystifica- 
tion of  grandchildren,  but  that  day  never  came.  So  the 
robes  of  fairyland  stowed  away  in  their  trunk  were  for- 
gotten, until  that  day  at  Tremans  when  I  found  them,  as 
I  turned  out  the  treasures  and  the  rubbish  of  the  vanished 
years  before  the  house  passed  into  other  hands.     It  was 


18  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

a  dark  autumn  day,  and  the  rain  beat  softly  on  the  roof, 
but  verily,  when  I  opened  the  trunk  and  found  them 
there,  the  sunlight  of  the  dawn  of  life  shot  level  and  de- 
licious rays  from  the  far  horizon,  and  cast  a  rainbow  over 
the  weeping  sky. 

People  in  those  very  early  days,  with  the  exception  of 
Beth,  were  more  part  of  the  general  landscape  of  life  than 
human  beings,  similar  in  kind  to  myself,  with  an  individ- 
uality of  their  own.  They  were  not  loved  or  feared :  they 
were  but  a  part  of  the  general  environment,  like  the  walls 
of  the  nursery,  or  trees  or  dinner  or  beds.  But,  as  by 
some  superior  swiftness  of  evolution,  Beth  ceased  to  be 
landscape,  and  became  a  human  being,  wholly  to  be 
adored  and  generally  to  be  obeyed,  sooner  than  any  of 
the  family.  She  was  well  over  fifty  when  first  I  remem- 
ber her,  and  had  by  now  almost  completed  the  nursing 
of  a  second  generation,  for  she  had  been  nursery-maid 
with  Mrs.  Sidgwick,  my  mother's  mother,  when  her  fam- 
ily came  into  the  world,  and  had  gone  to  my  mother  when 
at  the  mature  age  of  nineteen  the  first  of  her  six  children 
was  bom.  Thereafter  Beth  remained  with  my  mother 
until  the  end  of  her  long  and  utterly  beautiful  life  of 
love  and  service.  Very  soon  after  she  came  to  my  grand- 
mother, at  the  age  of  fifteen,  she  gave  notice  because  she 
wanted  to  go  back  from  Rugby  to  her  native  Yorkshire, 
and  did  not  settle  into  more  southerly  ways.  But  my 
grandmother  encouraged  her  to  think  that  she  soon  would 
do  so,  and  so  Beth,  instead  of  leaving,  stopped  on  till  the 
age  of  ninety-three,  in  an  unbroken  devotion  to  us  of 
seventy-eight  years.  That  devotion  was  returned:  we 
were  all  her  children,  and  the  darlingest  of  all  to  Beth's 
big  heart  was  Hugh. 

Beth  tiien,  to  my  sense,  emerged  first  of  all  into  the 


MV    MOTHER,    .tT.    20 


[Page  19 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  21 

ranks  of  human  beings,  servant  and  friend  and  to  a  very 
considerable  extent  mistress.  But  she  gave  us  no  weak 
and  sentimental  devotion,  and  though  she  never  inspired 
the  smallest  degree  of  fear,  her  rare  displeasure  caused  an 
awful  feeling  of  loneliness  and  desolation.  If  we  had 
done  wrong,  she  demanded  sorrow  before  her  forgiveness 
was  granted,  and  if  to  her  wise  mind  the  sorrow  was  not 
sufficiently  sincere,  she  was  quite  capable  of  saying,  when 
we  said  we  were  sorry  in  too  superficial  a  manner,  "I 
don't  want  your  sorrer,"  and  the  day  grew  black,  until 
she  accepted  it  and  beamed  forgiveness.  That  granted, 
there  was  never  any  nagging,  and  next  minute  she  would 
be  running  races  with  us  again  until  panting  and  bright- 
eyed  she  would  stop  and  say,  "Eh,  dear,  I  can't  run  any 
more :  I've  got  a  bone  in  my  leg." 

She  mingles  in  almost  every  memory  that  I  have  of 
those  days,  a  loved  and  protecting  presence.  She  it  was 
who  lifted  me  up  to  look  out  of  the  nursery  window  when 
a  sham  fight  was  going  on,  perhaps  at  Aldershot.  There 
were  reports  of  guns  to  be  heard  and,  so  I  fancy,  flashes 
and  wreaths  of  smoke,  and  like  George  III  I  got  it  firmly 
embedded  in  my  mind  that  this  was  the  battle  of  Water- 
loo that  I  had  witnessed.  The  connection  I  think  lay 
through  the  fact  of  this  place  being  Wellington.  She  it 
was  who  led  me  through  a  delicious  sandy  piece  of  waste 
ground  near  the  house  called  the  Wilderness,  and  allowed 
me  to  pick  and  eat  a  blackberry  from  a  bramble  that  grew 
by  a  rubbish  heap  on  which  was  a  broken  plate.  Never 
have  I  seen  such  a  blackberry.  I  can  still  hardly  believe 
it  was  not  of  the  size  of  an  apricot,  for  I  know  it  entirely 
filled  my  mouth  and  the  juice  spurted  therefrom  as  out  of 
a  wine-vat.  She  too  consoled  me  for  the  loss  of  two  front 
teeth  which  came  out  into  a  piece  of  butter-scotch  that 


22  OUR  FAMILY  SIFFAIRS 

she  had  given  me.  She  removed  the  teeth  and  I  pro- 
ceeded with  the  toffee.  She  too  allowed  me  to  take  out 
of  the  Noah's  ark  with  which  we  played  on  Sundays  a 
brown  dog  remotely  resembling  a  setter,  two  of  whose 
legs  had  been  broken.  Her  brilliant  surgery  had  repaired 
this  loss  by  inserting  in  the  stumps  a  couple  of  pins  so  that 
it  stood  up  as  well  as  ever.  This  I  was  permitted  to  carry 
about  with  me,  partly  in  my  pocket,  but  mostly  in  a  warm 
damp  hand,  which  caused  the  setter  to  exude  a  pleasant 
smell  of  paint  and  varnish.  A  moment  of  tragedy,  the 
first  that  I  had  known,  was  the  sequel,  and  I  do  not 
believe  that  ever  in  my  life  I  have  been  more  utterly 
miserable.     What  happened  was  this. 

It  was  Christmas  Eve,  and  the  live  of  us,  Martin, 
Arthur,  Nellie,  Maggie,  and  myself — Hugh,  so  I  guess, 
being  then  little  more  than  a  month  old — were  returning 
from  our  walk,  and  the  setter  should  have  been  in  my 
hand  or  in  my  pocket.  We  were  going  through  a  wood 
of  fir  trees,  the  ground  was  brown  and  slippery  with  pine- 
needles,  and  the  sun  low  and  red  shone  through  the 
tall  trunks  making,  with  the  fact  that  it  was  Christmas 
Eve,  an  enchanted  moment.  I  had  just  found  out  that 
my  breath  steamed,  as  it  came  out  of  my  mouth,  and 
Beth  and  I  were  playing  steamers.  Then  suddenly  I 
became  aware  that  the  setter  was  neither  in  my  hand  nor 
my  pocket,  and  the  abomination  of  desolation  descended 
on  me.  For  a  little  while  we  looked  for  it,  and  then  Beth 
decreed  that  we  must  go  on.  But  Martin — this  is  the  first 
thing  that  I  can  recollect  about  him — being  eleven  years 
old  and  able  to  walk  alone  after  dark,  got  leave  to  stop 
behind  and  look  for  it,  while  the  rest  of  the  bereaved  pro- 
cession went  homewards.  At  that  point  my  memory 
fails,  and  I  have  no  idea  whether  he  found  it  or  not.    But 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  23 

here  were  the  two  first  crystallized  emotions  of  my  life; 
the  black  misery  of  the  loss  of  the  setter,  and  the  sense 
of  Martin's  amazing  kindness  and  bravery  in  stopping 
behind  by  himself  in  the  terrible  wood.  There  was  a 
moon  in  the  sky  when  we  came  out  into  the  open  and 
frosty  stars,  but  no  heart  within  me  to  care  for  playing 
steamers  any  more  that  day. 

Next  morning,  after  nursery-breakfast,  I  went  down 
to  the  dining-room,  and  was  given  a  cup  of  milk  to  drink 
by  my  father.  This  was  an  unusual  proceeding,  and  as 
I  progressed  towards  the  bottom  of  the  cup  he  told  me 
to  drink  slowly.  Something  inside  the  cup  clinked  as  I 
finished  it,  and  there  was  a  shilling  which  was  mine. 

On  Sunday  morning,  towards  the  end  of  the  Welling- 
ton days,  I  went  down  to  breakfast  in  the  dining-room. 
There  were  short  prayers  first,  about  which  I  remember 
nothing  except  the  sight  of  servants'  backs,  kneeling  at 
chairs.  But  on  one  such  morning,  in  the  summer  I  sup- 
pose, because  all  the  windows  were  wide  open,  a  very 
delightful  thing  happened.  There  was  a  tame  squirrel 
that  used  to  scamper  about  the  house,  and  run  up  and 
down  stairs,  and  on  this  occasion  he  suddenly  descended 
from  a  curtain  rod,  crossed  the  floor  and  scampered  up 
the  cook's  back.  Probably  she  pushed  him  off,  for  he 
chattered  with  rage  and  went  and  sat  on  the  sideboard 
and  began  nibbling  ham. 

After  prayers  were  over,  while  breakfast  was  being 
brought  up,  it  was  my  task  to  go  round  the  walls  of  the 
dining-room,  where  hung  engravings  of  eminent  person- 
ages, and  name  them.  There  was  the  Prince  Consort  in 
striped  trousers  with  a  bowler  hat  in  his  hand,  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  in  knee-breeches,  the  head  and  shoulders 
of  Dr.  Walford,  a  full  length  of  Dean  Stanley,  and  Dr. 


24  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Martin  Routh  in  a  wig  reading  a  book.  Round  the  edge 
of  this  which  I  think  must  have  been  a  mezzotint  were 
various  small  sketches  of  the  said  Dr.  Martin  Routh  in 
other  attitudes.  Then  came  the  smell  of  sausages  and 
the  advent  of  two  or  three  sixth  form  boys  who  in  turn 
breakfasted  with  my  father.  These  were  very  glorious 
persons  and  I  marvelled  at  their  condescension  in  com- 
ing. Once  the  head  of  the  school  came,  and  following 
my  father's  example  I  addressed  him  by  his  surname 
(whatever  it  was)  without  the  prefix  of  "Mister,"  for 
which  omission  I  was  corrected.  But  out  of  his  mag- 
nificence he  did  not  seem  to  mind. 

Slowly,  as  the  mists  of  infancy  dispersed  through  which 
like  sundered  mountain-tops  were  seen  these  scattered  in- 
cidents, a  more  panoramic  vision  of  life  as  a  coherent 
whole  made  its  appearance.  There  had  been  vignettes, 
now  of  the  Wilderness,  now  of  my  father's  study,  now 
of  the  nursery,  with  nothing  except  the  continuous  as- 
sociation with  Beth  to  bind  them  together.  But  now 
these  scattered  localities  became  parts  of  one  connected 
picture,  and  I  could  form  some  sort  of  complete  idea  of 
the  place.  Most  important  was  the  house,  the  Master's 
Lodge,  a  red  brick  building  standing  in  its  own  grounds. 
You  entered  through  a  gabled  porch  into  a  broad  pas- 
sage, on  one  side  of  which  lay  my  father's  study.  Glass 
doors  separated  this  from  the  huge  immensity  of  the  hall, 
with  my  mother's  sitting-room,  the  drawing-room  and  the 
dining-room  operiing  out  of  it.  The  stairs  started  in  the 
centre  of  it  and  after  one  flight  separated  into  two,  each 
of  which  led  up  into  a  gallery  that  skirted  three  sides  of 
the  hall.  Bedrooms  opened  out  of  this,  also  the  day 
nursery  and  night  nursery,  and  pitch-pine  banisters  (a 
wood  much  admired  at  that  time)  ran  round  it,  and  it 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  25 

was  through  these  banisters  that  one  morning  my  sister 
Maggie,  in  a  fit  of  wonderful  audacity  inserted  her  foot, 
and  exclaimed,  "That's  my  foot,  Alleluia."  In  the 
nursery,  the  room  with  which  I  was  chiefly  concerned,  was 
a  rocking-horse  with  wide  red  nostrils  and  movable  pum- 
mels. These  pummels  penetrated  right  through  his  dap- 
pled skin,  and  by  removing  them  it  was  possible  to  drop 
small  objects  like  pebbles  into  his  inside,  where  they  rat- 
tled agreeably  as  he  rocked.  Once  some  one  of  us,  tempt- 
ing Fate,  held  a  penny  at  this  remarkable  aperture,  and 
the  penny  dropped  inside,  so  that  Beth  had  to  turn  the 
rocking-horse  upside  down  and  shake  him  until  it  was 
restored  to  currency  again.  There  was  a  low  deal  table, 
quantities  of  lead  soldiers,  and  a  swing  hung  from  the 
ceiling,  so  that  altogether  it  presented  most  agreeable 
features.  There  was  also  a  large  cupboard  where  play- 
things must  be  put  away  when  they  were  done  with,  and 
I  remember  with  excitement  a  Homeric  struggle  that  took 
place  there  between  Martin  and  Arthur  for  the  posses- 
sion of  a  stick  which  was  painted  blue  and  red.  But  the 
most  remarkable  feature  of  the  nursery  was  its  walls, 
which,  by  the  time  we  left  Wellington,  were  entirely 
covered  with  pictures.  These  pictures  we  children  used 
to  cut  out  on  wet  days  from  old  illustrated  papers  under 
my  father's  supervision,  and  he,  clad  in  a  dressing-gown 
to  defend  his  clothes  from  splashes  of  paste,  fixed  them 
up  on  the  walls,  till  the  entire  surface  was  covered.  He 
had  a  step-ladder  on  which  he  attacked  the  higher  alti- 
tudes, and  a  roller  with  which  he  pressed  down  the  affixed 
pictures  to  the  wall.  There  were  battles  there  and  his- 
torical scenes,  notable  buildings,  and  numerous  cartoons 
from  Punch.  But  one  ought  never  to  have  been  put  there, 
for  I  dreaded  seeing  it,  and,  like  a  child,  kept  my  dread  to 


26  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

myself.  It  was  the  outcome,  I  imagine,  of  some  enquiry 
into  sweated  trades,  and  represented  a  dressmaker  talking 
to  a  client  and  saying,  "I  wouldn't  disappoint  your  lady- 
ship for  anything,"  or  words  to  that  effect.  At  the  back 
was  a  glimpse  into  her  workroom,  and  there  falling  back- 
wards with  closed  eyes  was  a  girl,  fainting  I  suppose  in 
the  artist's  intention,  but  I  knew  better  and  was  aware 
that  she  was  dead.  Nightmares  pictured  her  as  falling 
across  my  bed  in  the  sleeping-nursery  next  door,  and  Beth, 
in  her  frilled  nightcap  came  close  and  said,  "Now,  dear, 
go  to  sleep  again.  I'm  taking  care  of  you."  Doors  in 
the  hall  led  I  suppose  to  kitchens  and  servants'  bedrooms, 
but  of  these  I  remember  nothing  except  the  fact  of  a 
flagged  passage  and  the  smell  of  a  store-cupboard  to 
which  I  once  went  with  my  mother.  That  part  of  the 
house  did  not  matter. 

Outside,  the  lawn  was  spread  round  two  sides  of  the 
house;  if  you  crossed  it,  you  found  a  wicket-gate  in  a 
fence  that  bordered  the  belt  of  trees  where  the  gardener 
cast  the  dead  adder,  and  through  this  you  passed  to  the 
kitchen  garden.  On  the  right  of  the  lawn  below  the 
trees  stood  a  summer-house  where  the  croquet  mallets 
were  kept,  and  through  these  trees  was  a  path  that  led 
out  into  the  school  playing  fields.  A  gravel  sweep  faced 
the  front  door;  there  were  laburnums  and  rhododendrons 
by  the  gate,  to  the  right  lay  the  Wilderness  and  straight 
in  front  the  College  buildings  with  the  spired  chapel  at 
the  far  end.  Somewhere  in  these  buildings  was  the  school 
library,  only  notable  because  it  contained  a  glass  case  in 
which  was  a  white  ant.  Below  the  playing  fields  lay  two 
immeasurable  lakes,  in  the  lower  of  which  was  the  school 
bathing-place :  the  upper,  though  also  immeasurable,  was 
smaller,  and  a  waterfall  of  gigantic  height  severed  the 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  27 

two.  By  degrees  the  same  world  extended  even  further 
than  that,  for  by  walking  laboriously  you  could  reach 
either  of  two  hills  called  Edgebarrow  and  Ambarrow,  and 
then  it  was  time  to  come  home  again. 

Simultaneously  with  this  growing  reality  of  the  world, 
its  inhabitants  (still  with  the  exception  of  my  father)  as- 
sumed an  individuality  of  their  own.  Far  the  most  in- 
dividual of  them  was  my  mother,  who  seemed  to  live 
entirely  for  pleasure  except  when  she  taught  us  our  les- 
sons. She  played  croquet  with  consummate  skill,  she 
drove  herself  in  a  pony  carriage,  she  put  on  a  low  shin- 
ing dress  every  evening  with  turquoise  brooches  and  brace- 
lets, and  had  as  much  eau-de-Cologne  as  she  wished  on 
her  handkerchief.  When  she  was  dressing  for  dinner  we 
used  to  go  into  her  room,  examine  that  Golconda  of  a 
jewel-case,  and  bring  her  clean  handkerchiefs  of  our 
own  still  folded  up,  for  her  to  "make  moons"  on  them, 
as  the  phrase  was,  with  eau-de-Cologne.  She  took  the 
stopper  out  of  the  bottle,  and  reversed  it  on  to  these 
folded  handkerchiefs,  making  three  or  four  applications. 
Then  we  unfolded  these  odorous  handkerchiefs,  held  them 
up  to  the  light,  and  lo,  they  were  penetrated  with  full 
wet  moons  of  eau-de-Cologne.  She  was,  too,  enormously 
wealthy,  for  every  Saturday  we  went  to  see  her  in  her  sit- 
ting-room, and  she  opened  the  front  of  her  inlaid  Italian 
cabinet,  and  drew  from  one  of  the  pigeon-holes  within, 
a  little  wicker-basket,  and  out  of  it  paid  our  weekly  al- 
lowances. For  elders  there  was  as  much  as  sixpence,  but 
sixpences  came  out  of  a  japanned  cash-box,  for  juniors 
there  was  twopence  or  a  penny  according  to  age,  and  all 
these  pennies,  infinite  apparently  in  number  came  out  of 
the  wicker-basket.  She  had  a  rosewood  work-box,  lined 
with  red  silk,  which  contained  what  was  known  as  her 


28  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

"treasures."  These  were  two  white  china  elephants  with 
gilded  feet,  a  small  silk  parasol,  the  ferrule  of  which  was 
a  pencil,  an  amber  necklace,  a  cornelian  heart,  and  boxes 
that  made  loud  pops  when  you  opened  them.  If  any  of 
us  had  a  cold,  or  some  ailment  that  kept  us  indoors,  we 
were  allowed  to  play  with  her  treasures,  to  while  away 
the  solitude.  But  for  some  reason  I  did  not  think  much 
of  the  treasures,  and  after  being  consoled  with  them  dur- 
ing an  afternoon  indoors  gave  vent  to  the  appalling  criti- 
cism, "What  Mamma  calls  tessors,  I  call  'Ubbish."  But 
that,  as  far  as  I  know,  was  the  only  disloyalty  of  which 
I  was  ever  guilty  with  regard  to  her.  I  just  did  not 
care  about  that  particular  sort  of  treasures. 

What  a  life  was  hers  I  She  ordered  lunch  and  dinner 
precisely  as  she  chose;  she  had  a  silver  card-case  with 
cards  in  it,  stating  who  she  was  and  where  she  was,  and 
we  all  belonged  to  her,  and  so  in  some  dim  way  did  my 
father,  and  even  the  biggest  boys  of  the  great  sixth  form 
itself  touched  their  caps  to  her  as  she  passed.  And  slowly, 
slowly  I  became  aware  that  she  was  worthy  of  all  these 
pleasures  and  this  homage. 

There  were  certainly  lessons  in  those  days,  I  suppose 
for  about  an  hour  a  day.  There  was  a  book  called  Read- 
ing witkout  Tears,  which  said  that  a-b  was  "ab,"  and 
d-o-g  was  "dog."  There  must  have  been  certain  crises 
over  this  learning  for  I  was  kept  in  instead  of  going  out 
one  day,  and,  with  the  fatal  habit  of  inversion  which  has 
clung  to  me  all  my  life,  said,  so  my  mother  told  me,  "I 
call  it  tears  without  reading  I"  I  record  this  anecdote  in 
pure  self-condemnation :  I  don't  suppose  I  knew  that  this 
obiter  dictum  made  sense;  it  was  only  the  beginning  of 
a  habit  to  play  about  with  words,  and  see  to  what  fash- 
ion of  affairs  they  could  be  suited.    Every  morning  also, 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  29 

when  we  came  downstairs  we  went  into  my  mother's  sit- 
ting-room, and  learned  a  new  verse  of  a  Psalm,  repeating 
the  verses  previously  learned.  The  Twenty-Third  Psalm 
was  one  of  these,  and  the  Ninety-First  I  think  must  have 
been  another,  since  I  cannot  remember  the  time  when  I 
did  not  know  it  by  heart.  I  do  not  think  that  these  re- 
ligious repetitions  meant  anything  to  me ;  they  were  part 
of  the  inevitable  day,  which  was  full  of  glee. 

That  my  mother  had  any  other  life  of  her  own,  full 
as  I  know  it  to  have  been  of  worries  and  anxieties  and 
of  marvellous  happinesses,  never,  as  was  natural,  occurred 
to  any  of  us.  She  was,  as  far  as  concerns  my  memory  of 
her  at  Wellington,  a  glorious  sunlit  figure,  living  a  life 
that  appeared  to  be  the  apotheosis  of  hedonism,  the 
mistress  of  a  shouting  houseful  of  children,  all  wilful, 
all  set  on  having  their  own  way,  and  she  calmly  ruled 
us  all,  without  even  letting  us  know  that  we  were  being 
ruled.  All  the  time  she  was  a  very  young  woman  mar- 
ried to  a  man  twelve  years  her  senior  who  was  as  violent- 
ly individual  as  anyone  could  be.  But  for  us  she  floated 
there  like  the  moons  of  eau-de-Cologne  which  embellished 
our  handkerchiefs,  carrying  something  of  the  fairyhood 
of  Abracadabra,  and  all  the  wizardry  of  her  own  inimit- 
able wisdom.  After  Beth  it  was  she  who  first  emerged 
out  of  the  landscape  which  once  embraced  trees  and  peo- 
ple alike,  and  to  us  soared  upwards  like  a  rising  constella- 
tion. She  could  not  take  Beth's  place,  for  Beth  filled 
that,  but  she  enlarged  a  child's  heart,  and  dwelt  there. 
She  never  ceased  from  her  own  enlargements:  in  my 
mother's  house  there  were  many  mansions.  There  were 
mansions  for  everybody,  and  none  of  the  tenants  usurped 
the  place  of  another.  As  we  grew  up,  all  of  us,  without 
exception,  felt  that  we  were  especially  hers,  and  were  in 


80  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

a  unique  relation  to  her.  We  were  all  quite  right  about 
that,  and  so  were  a  myriad  friends  of  hers.  There  was 
"the  best  room"  for  each  of  them.  How  she  did  it,  how 
she  conveyed  that  adorable  truth  I  know  now,  because 
I  know  that  love  is  of  infinite  dimensions,  and  has  the 
same  perfect  room  for  all.  But  the  childish  instinct  was 
right:  she  cared  supremely,  and  gave  her  whole  heart  to 
each  of  us. 

My  sisters,  presently  to  be  kindled  for  me  with  a  great 
illumination,  were  for  the  period  of  the  Wellington  days 
quite  dim,  so  too  were  Martin  and  Arthur  now  at  a 
private  school  at  East  Sheen,  where,  some  years  later,  I 
followed  them,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  at  that  time 
consisted  of  vague  visitors,  among  whom  were  my 
mother's  three  brothers,  William,  Henry,  and  Arthur 
Sidgwick  (remarkable  only  for  their  beards  and  their 
use  of  tobacco),  and  her  mother,  who  is  a  much  clearer 
figure.  She  encouraged  small  visitors  when  she  was 
dressing  for  dinner,  was  generous  in  making  moons,  and 
had  a  ritual  with  regard  to  the  dressing  of  her  hair  which 
filled  me  with  wonder.  It  was  parted  in  the  middle  and 
she  drew  down  two  strands  of  it  over  the  top  of  her 
ears,  and  holding  each  of  these  in  place  applied  to  it  a 
stick  of  brown  cosmetic  whi^  I  now  know  to  have  been 
bandoline.  The  effect  of  this  was  that  the  hair  stuck 
together  in  the  manner  of  a  thin  board,  absolutely  smooth 
and  in  one  piece.  Sometimes  a  crack  or  fissure  appeared 
it  it,  and  more  bandoline  was  employed.  It  formed  in 
fact  a  little  stiff  roof,  and  on  the  top  she  put  a  lace  cap. 
She  had  long  chains  round  her  neck,  and  carried  a  silver 
vinaigrette  containing  a  small  piece  of  sponge  soaked  in 
aromatic  vinegar.  It  was  chiefly  used  in  chapel  when  she 
was  standing  up  during  the  Psalms.    On  the  other  side 


WELLINGTON  AND  THE  BEGINNING  81 

of  the  family  there  were  three  aunts  who  corresponded 
with  the  three  uncles,  sisters  of  my  father,  two  of  whom 
were  very  handsome  and  of  a  high  colour;  the  third, 
Aunt  Ada,  seemed  to  me  to  be  like  a  horse.  They  all 
floated  in  a  sort  of  remote  ether,  like  clouds  coming  up 
and  passing  again. 


CHAPTER  II 

LINCOLN   AND    EARLY    EMOTIONS 

IN  1873  niy  father  was  appointed  Chancellor  of  Lin- 
coln, and  the  move  there  was  made  in  the  summer  of 
that  year,  during  July  and  August.  We  four  younger 
children,  Nellie,  Maggie,  myself  and  Hugh  went  with 
Beth  to  stay  with  my  grandmother  at  Rugby  while  it 
was  in  progress.  That  visit  was  memorable  for  several 
reasons:  in  the  first  place  I  celebrated  a  birthday  there, 
and  great-Aunt  Henrietta  had  no  idea  that  I  was  long 
past  fairies,  for  on  the  morning  of  that  day  she  met  me 
in  the  hall,  and  said  she  would  go  out  to  see  if  there 
were  any  fairies  about,  for  she  fancied  she  had  heard  them 
singing.  Accordingly  she  went  out  of  the  front  door, 
closing  it  after  her,  and  leaving  me  in  the  hall.  Sure 
enough  from  the  other  side  of  the  door  there  instantly 
came  a  crooning  kind  of  noise,  which  I  knew  was  Aunt 
Henrietta  singing,  and  there  was  a  rattle  in  the  letter-box 
in  the  door  of  something  dropped  into  it.  Aunt  Hen- 
rietta then  returned  in  considerable  excitement,  and 
asked  me  if  I  hadn't  heard  the  fairies  singing,  and  of 
course  I  said  I  had.  One  had  come  right  on  to  the  doorstep, 
she  continued,  while  she  stood  there,  and  had  dropped 
something  for  me  into  the  letter-box.  And  there  was 
a  velvet  purse  with  a  brass  clasp,  and  inside  five  shillings. 
This  was  an  opulence  hitherto  undreamed  of.  Aunt  Hen- 
rietta was  remarkable  in  other  ways  besides  generosity: 

32 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     33 

she  wore  a  curious  cap  with  pink  blobs  on  it,  and  when 
asked  how  they  were  made  instantly  replied  that  they 
were  made  by  coral  insects  underneath  the  sea.  It  was 
also  said  of  her  that  she  went  to  church  one  Sunday  with 
a  friend,  and  found  they  had  only  one  prayer  book,  and 
that  with  small  print,  between  them.  They  were  both 
short-sighted  and  they  each  pulled  so  lustily  on  the  prayer 
book  in  order  to  see  better,  that  it  came  in  half  about 
the  middle  of  the  Psalms. 

One  day  there  came  a  moment  which  still  ranks  in  my 
mind  as  an  experience  of  transcendent  happiness.  It  had 
been  a  delicious  day  already,  for  not  only  had  my  mother 
arrived,  but  the  ceiling  of  the  dining-room  was  being 
white-washed,  and  we  had  our  meals  in  my  grandmother's 
sitting-room,  which  gave  something  of  the  thrill  of  a  pic- 
nic. That  evening  we  were  playing  in  the  garden  when 
Beth  came  out  to  tell  us  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed.  She 
took  me  along  the  path,  and  there  close  to  an  open 
window  my  mother  and  grandmother  were  having  diimer. 
We  stopped  a  moment,  and  I  asked  if  I  might  not  have 
ten  minutes  more  in  the  garden.  That  was  granted,  and, 
as  if  that  was  not  enough,  my  grandmother  gave  me  three 
grapes  from  a  bunch  on  the  table.  As  I  ate  them  a  breeze 
brought  across  me  the  warm  scent  of  a  lilac  bush,  and 
the  combination  of  these  things  made  me  touch  a  new  apex 
of  happiness.  Something,  the  joy  of  the  level  sunlight,  of 
the  three  grapes,  of  the  lilac  scent,  of  having  ten  minutes 
more  to  play  in,  rushed  simultaneously  over  me,  and  at 
that  moment  some  new  consciousness  of  the  world  and 
its  exquisiteness  was  unsealed  in  me.  And  I  doubt  if  I 
have  ever  been  so  happy  since,  or  if  anything,  owing 
to  that  moment,  will  ever  smell  so  sweet  to  me  as  lilac. 

Whatever  that  unsealing  was,  the  wax  was  broken  for 


34  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ever,  and  from  then  a  more  vivid  perception  was  mine. 
According  to  Wordsworth  I  ought,  just  about  then,  to 
have  ceased  trailing  my  clouds  of  glory,  instead  of  which 
they  trailed  in  far  more  radiant  profusion.  The  arrival 
at  Lincoln  still  wonderfully  etched  in  my  memory  was 
an  adventure  of  the  finest  kind,  and  the  exploration  of 
the  new  land  teemed  with  unique  discoveries.  The  fact 
that  the  house  dated  from  the  fourteenth  century  natural- 
ly mattered  not  at  all :  its  joy  lay  in  its  present  suitability 
to  the  diversions  of  children.  There  was  a  winding  stone 
staircase,  opening  from  a  nail-studded  door  in  the  hall 
with  pentagrams  carved  on  the  steps  to  keep  off  evil 
spirits:  there  was  a  day  nursery  made  of  two  bedrooms 
thrown  into  one;  there  was  a  suite  of  amazing  attics, 
steeped  in  twilight,  with  rafters  close  above  the  head,  and 
loose  boards  underfoot.  Here  in  dark  comers  lay  water-cis- 
terns which  gurgled  unexpectedly  in  the  dusk  with  mirth- 
less goblin  chuckles;  cobwebs  hung  in  corners  and  mice 
scuttled.  Here  too  was  a  bare  tremendous  apartment 
also  under  the  roof,  spread  with  pears  and  apples.  Up 
one  side  of  it  went  a  buttress,  which  certainly  contained 
the  chimney  from  the  kitchen,  for  it  was  warm  to  the 
touch  and  altogether  mysterious. 

Instantly,  so  it  seems  to  me  now,  we  began  playing  the 
most  blood-curdling  games  in  that  floor  of  attics;  people 
hid  there  and  groaned  and  jumped  out  on  you  with 
maniacal  screams.  A  short  steep  flight  of  steps  led  down 
from  it  to  the  nursery  floor,  and  how  often,  giddy  with 
pleasing  terror,  have  I  tumbled  down  those  steps,  be- 
cause somebody  (who  ought  to  have  been  a  sister,  but 
might  easily  have  become  a  goblin)  was  yelling  behind 
me.  One's  mind,  the  sensible  part  of  it  much  in  abey- 
ance, knew  quite  well  that  it  was  Nellie  or  Maggie,  but 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     35 

supposing  one's  sensible  mind  was  wrong  for  once?  It 
was  wiser  to  run,  just  in  case.  .  .  .  From  which  vivid 
memory  I  perceive  that  though  I  knew  about  Abracadabra 
I  was  not  so  firmly  rationalistic  about  the  rooms  with 
gurgling  cisterns  in  them.  In  the  dark,  strange  metamor- 
phoses might  have  occurred,  and  when  one  day  I  found  in 
the  darkest  corner  of  one  of  these  attics,  a  figure  apparent- 
ly human,  and  certainly  resembling  Nellie,  lying  flat 
down  and  not  moving  (though  it  was  for  the  hider  to 
catch  the  seeker)  the  light  of  my  sensible  mind  was 
snuffed  out  like  a  candlewick,  and  I  shrieked  out,  "Oh, 
Nellie,  don't  I"  Observe  the  confusion  of  an  infant 
mind  I  I  knew  the  corpse  to  be  Nellie,  for  I  addressed 
it  as  Nellie,  and  told  it  not  to;  on  the  other  hand,  by  an 
involuntary  exercise  of  the  imagination  I  conceived  that 
this  still  twilight  object  might  be  something  quite  dif- 
ferent. 

My  sisters  were  now  of  an  age  to  sleep  together  in  a 
large  apartment  somewhere  at  the  top  of  the  stone  stairs, 
while  I  still  slept  in  the  night  nursery,  in  a  bed  near 
the  window.  Beth  occupied  another  bed,  and  in  a  corner 
was  Hugh's  crib  with  high  sides,  where  he — ^being  now 
about  two  years  old — was  stowed  away  before  the  day 
was  over  for  me.  Next  door  to  the  nursery  was  a  room 
smaller  than  any  room  I  have  ever  seen,  and  this  was  of- 
ficially known  as  "My  Room."  It  had  a  tiny  window, 
was  quite  uninhabitable,  for  it  was  always  shrouded 
in  a  deadly  gloom  and  piled  up  with  boxes,  but  the  fact 
that  it  was  my  room,  though  I  lived  in  the  day  nursery 
by  day,  and  slept  in  the  night  nursery  by  night,  gave  me 
a  sense  of  pomp  and  dignity,  and  I  resented  the  fact 
that  presently  my  father  had  the  wing  of  the  house  which 
lay  above  the  stone  staircase  connected  with  the  night 


36  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

nursery  by  a  wooden  passage  across  the  roof.  This  turned 
my  room  into  part  of  the  passage,  and  though  he  called 
this  ten  yards  of  passage  "the  Rialto,"  I  felt  that  I  had 
been  robbed  of  some  ancestral  domain.  After  all  it  was 
My  Room.  .  .  . 

The  rest  of  the  house  was  not  particularly  interesting; 
it  consisted  of  sitting-rooms  and  dining-room,  and  school- 
room and  lobbies,  the  sort  of  thing  that  you  naturally  sup- 
posed would  be  there.  But  one  day  my  father  presented 
my  sisters  and  me  with  a  room  at  the  top  of  the  stone 
stairs,  with  which  we  were  allowed  to  deal  precisely  as 
we  wished.  We  instantly  called  it  "The  Museum,"  and 
put  in  it  any  unusual  objects  that  we  obtained.  One  day 
Maggie  found  a  piece  of  sheep's  wool  stuck  in  a  hedge,  so 
that  of  course  was  brought  home,  washed  white  and  care- 
fully combed  and  put  in  a  cardboard  box  with  a  glass 
lid.  Then  (to  anticipate  as  regards  the  Museum)  we 
spent  a  summer  holiday  at  Torquay,  and  collected 
various  attractive  pebbles,  and  madrepores,  and  shells. 
These  were  dedicated  to  the  Museum,  and  a  large  earth- 
enware bread-bowl  was  lined  with  them,  and  filled  up 
with  water  to  the  top,  so  that  they  gleamed  deliciously 
through  the  liquid.  Then  there  came  a  memorable  day 
when  my  mother  killed  a  hornet  on  her  window ;  she  gave 
us  the  squalid  corpse,  and  after  consultation  we  put  it  in 
the  water  of  the  bowl,  lined  with  spa  and  madrepore,  in 
order  to  preserve  it.  It  floated  about  there  and  was  sup- 
posed to  be  in  process  of  preservation.  An  addled  swan's 
egg  joined  the  collection,  which,  very  prudently,  we  de- 
cided not  to  blow.  But  it  began  to  smell  so  terribly  even 
through  the  shell  that  with  great  reluctance  we  scrapped 
it.  My  father  gave  us  a  case  of  butterfles,  collected  by 
his  father,  in  which,  without  doubt  were  two  "large  cop- 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     37 

pers."  "As  rare  things  will"  that  case  vanished,  and  I 
wonder  what  fortunate  dealer  eventually  got  the  "large 
coppers."  .  .  .  Then  on  a  bookshelf  was  the  great  stamp- 
collection,  and  I  wish  I  knew  what  had  happened  to  that. 
There  was  all  South  Australia  complete,  and  complete 
too  was  Tasmania,  and  complete  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
the  stamps  of  which  for  the  sake  of  variety  were  triangu- 
lar. Heligoland  was  there  and  the  Ionian  Islands  and 
New  Caledonia  (black  and  only  one  of  it).  But  the 
stamp-collection  was  considered  rather  dull:  the  hornet 
disintegrating  in  the  bread-bowl,  and  the  piece  of  sheep's 
wool  were  far  more  interesting.  They  had  the  timbre  of 
personal  acquisition,  and  rang  with  first-hand  emotion. 
Personal  and  precious  too  were  the  bits  of  oxydised  glass 
smouldering  into  rainbows  which  we  dug  up  in  the  garden 
and  displayed  here ;  there  too  we  found  bowls  and  broken 
stems  of  tobacco-pipes  which  I  think  were  Cromwellian. 
But  Cromwell  was  no  good  to  us,  so  we  said  that  they 
were  Roman  tobacco-pipes.  Then  there  was  a  collection 
of  fossils,  which,  with  the  aid  of  geological  hammers  that 
my  father  gave  us,  we  rapped  out  of  stones  in  lime  quar- 
ries, or  from  the  heaps  that  lay  by  the  roadside  for  mend- 
ings. Amateur  stone-breakers  indeed  we  were,  and  often 
bruised  fingers  were  of  the  party,  but  they  added  p^ecious^ 
ness  to  the  trophies  that  we  brought  back  to  the  Museum. 
On  the  door  of  the  Museum  was  a  paper  label,  on  which 
was  emblazoned  in  large  letters  tinted  with  water-colour, 
"Museum.  Private."  The  privacy  was  part  of  the  joy 
of  it.  Occasionally  we  asked  my  mother  to  have  tea  with 
us  there,  and  she  came  in  her  hat  formally.  This  very 
proper  behaviour  was  duly  appreciated. 

Indeed  that  was  a  good  house  for  children  with  its 
attics  and  its  winding-stairs,  and  its  multitude  of  pas- 


38  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

sages.  Judging  the  virtue  of  a  house  by  the  standards  of 
hide-and-seek,  than  which  there  is  no  more  authentic 
rule,  I  never  saw  so  laudable  a  habitation.  Endless  were 
the  dark  places  for  the  concealment  of  hiders,  endless  also 
the  various  routes  by  which  the  seekers  might  get  back 
uncaught  to  the  sanctuary  where  Beth  sat  with  her  sew-: 
ing  over  the  fire  and  said,  "Eh  now,  you'll  be  falling 
down  and  hurting  yourselves."  There  was  the  route  up 
the  kitchen  stairs,  the  route  through  my  father's  dressing- 
room  and  study,  only  practicable  (as  on  the  days  when 
the  Khyber  Pass  is  open  to  caravans)  when  he  was  away: 
there  were  the  stairs  up  from  the  hall  into  the  lobby; 
there  were  the  winding-stairs  communicating  through  the 
Rialto  with  the  nursery  passage,  at  the  other  end  of  which 
were  the  nursery  stairs.  How  rare  again  was  the  cul-de- 
sac,  that  infernal  invention  of  degraded  architects  and  the 
ruin  of  all  good  hide-and-seek,  which  makes  capture  in- 
evitable, when  once  you  are  in  the  trap.  For  magnifi- 
cence of  design,  judging  by  these  standards,  I  unhesi- 
tatingly allot  the  palm  to  the  Chancery  house  in  the  Close 
at  Lincoln. 

Gardens,  in  like  manner,  must  be  judged  by  their 
serviceableness  in  the  pursuit  of  games,  and  here  again 
we  were  fortunate.  Adjacent  to  the  house  itself  was 
a  big  lawn,  levelled  and  sown  afresh,  which  was  the 
arena  of  cricket  and  rounders.  Behind  that  was  an 
asphalted  yard  with  a  stable,  a  coach-house  and  a  wood- 
shed, erected  no  doubt  in  order  that  we  might  play  fives 
against  them :  a  covered  passage  led  to  the  kitchen  garden. 
There  was  sufficient  space  here  for  a  lawn-tennis  court, 
the  lines  of  which  were  laid  down  with  tape  secured  by 
hairpins.  Occasionally  the  foot  caught  in  the  tape;  "zp, 
zp,  zp,"  went  most  of  the  hairpins  and  the  shape  of  the 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     39 

court  changed  for  the  moment  from  an  oblong  to  a  trape- 
zium with  no  right-angles.  By  one  side  of  this  was  a 
steep  grassy  bank  with  elder  bushes  growing  on  the  top. 
Here  you  laid  yourself  stiffly  out  on  the  ground,  and  like 
that  rolled  bodily  down  the  bank,  sitting  up  again  at  the 
bottom  to  find  the  world  reeling  and  spinning  round  you. 
When  you  felt  a  little  less  sick,  you  refreshed  yourself 
with  elderberries,  and  rolled  down  again.  Beyond  this 
was  a  pear  tree  large  enough  to  climb,  and  high  enough 
not  to  fall  out  of,  and  an  asparagus  bed.  The  edible 
properties  of  that  vegetable  were  of  no  interest,  but  when 
it  went  to  seed  and  grew  up  in  tall  fern-like  stems  with 
orange  berries  it  was  valuable  as  a  hiding-place.  Nar- 
row grass  paths  led  this  way  and  that  between  the  garden 
beds,  and  they  had  been  well  constructed,  for  they  were 
of  such  a  width  that  it  was  possible,  though  difficult,  to 
bowl  a  hoop  down  them  without  invading  the  cabbages. 
A  fool  would  have  made  them  either  wider  or  narrower, 
and  then  they  would  have  been  useless.  In  a  corner  of 
the  garden  were  our  own  particular  plots,  and  against 
the  red  brick  wall  grew  a  fig  tree,  which  I  thought  had 
some  connection  with  the  biblical  tree  that  withered  away, 
because  it  never  yielded  its  fruit.  All  round  the  garden 
ran  a  high  wall,  now  brick,  now  ancient  limestone,  and 
at  the  bottom  was  a  mediaeval  tower  partly  in  ruins,  where 
we  habitually  played  the  most  dangerous  game  that  has 
ever  been  invented  since  the  world  began.  Why  no  one 
was  killed  I  cannot  understand  to  this  day.  The  game  was 
called  "Sieges,"  and  the  manner  of  it  was  as  follows: 
A  flight  of  some  twenty  high  stone  steps  led  up  to  a 
chamber  in  the  tower,  which  was  roofless  and  ivy-clad. 
They  lay  against  the  wall  with  a  turn  half-way  up,  and 
up  to  that  point  had  no  protection  whatever  on  one  si:!c, 


40  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

so  that  nothing  could  have  been  simpler  than  to  have 
fallen  off  them  to  the  ground.  From  the  chamber  a 
further  short  flight  led  up  on  to  an  open  turret  defended 
at  the  top  by  a  low  iron  railing  of  doubtful  solidity.  One 
child  was  constituted  King  of  the  Castle,  the  others  were 
the  besiegers.  The  besiegers  stormed  the  castle  and  the 
besieger  and  besieged  tried  to  hurl  each  other  downstairs. 
The  besieged  had  the  advantage  of  superior  height,  for 
he  stood  usually  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  by  the  chamber; 
the  besiegers  the  advantage  of  weight  and  numbers.  You 
were  allowed  to  resort  to  any  form  of  violence  in  order  to 
win  your  object,  except  kicking;  blows  and  pushings  and 
wrestlings  and  trippings-up  formed  legitimate  warfare. 
Even  the  rule  about  kicking  must  have  been  rather  slack, 
for  I  remember  once  seeking  my  mother  with  a  bleeding 
nose,  and  saying  that  Nellie  had  kicked  me  in  the  face 
at  "Sieges."  Her  defence,  a  singularly  weak  one  as  it 
still  appears  to  me,  was  that  she  hadn't  kicked  me  in  the 
face  at  all:  she  had  only  put  her  foot  against  my  face 
and  then  pushed.  Whereon  the  judge  went  into  such  fits 
of  laughter  that  the  trial  was  adjourned. 

At  first  my  mother  taught  us  entirely,  and  the  sight  of 
the  schoolroom  when  lessons  were  going  on  would  cer- 
tainly have  conveyed  a  very  false  impression  to  a  stranger, 
for  close  to  my  mother's  hand  lay  a  silver-mounted  riding- 
whip  of  plaited  horsehair.  But  it  was  not  for  purposes 
of  correction :  its  use  was  that  if  as  we  were  writing  our 
exercises  and  copies  she  saw  we  were  not  sitting  upright, 
her  hand  would  stealthily  take  up  the  whip  and  bring 
it  down  with  a  sounding  thwack  on  to  the  table,  startling 
us  into  erect  attitudes  again.  To  these  instructions  there 
was  soon  added  Latin,  and  I  remember  the  charm  of  new 
words  just  because  they  were  new.    It  was  also  interesting 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     41 

to  grasp  the  fact  that  there  really  had  been  people  once 
who,  when  they  wanted  to  say  "table"  preferred  to  say 
"mensa,"  and  found  that  their  friends  understood  them 
perfectly.  I  suppose  that  soon  my  mother  became  too 
busy  to  continue  the  instruction  of  my  sisters  and  me,  for 
a  day-governess  appeared,  a  quiet  melancholy  German 
lady  with  brown  eyes,  and  a  manner  that  commanded  re- 
spect. She  was  not  with  us  very  long,  and  on  her  de- 
parture we  three  went  to  a  day-school  kept  by  a  widow. 
She  had  a  Roman  nose,  and  though  rather  terrible  was 
kind.  She  lived  in  a  house  just  outside  the  close  which 
smelt  of  mackintosh:  the  schoolroom  was  a  larger  wooden 
apartment  built  out  over  the  garden. 

In  between  these  curricula  we  had  a  temporary  gover- 
ness who  seemed  to  us  all  the  most  admirable  and  en- 
viable person  who  ever  lived.  This  was  Miss  Bramston, 
a  great  personal  friend  of  my  mother's,  whose  brother, 
beloved  subsequently  by  generation  after  generation  of 
Wykehamists,  had  been  a  master  at  Wellington  under 
my  father.  Never  was  there  so  delightful  an  instructress; 
by  dint  of  her  being  so  pleasant  when  we  disobeyed  her, 
we  soon  got  to  obey  her  not  out  of  discipline,  of  which 
she  had  not  the  faintest  notion,  but  out  of  affection,  of 
which  she  had  a  great  deal.  She  wrote  us  a  play  in 
rhymed  verse,  all  out  of  her  own  head,  which  we  acted 
one  Christmas,  rather  like  Hatnlet,  with  rhymes  thrown 
in,  and  ending  much  more  comfortably  than  that  tragedy. 
There  was  a  king  on  a  throne,  only  he  wasn't  the  right 
king  and  when  alone  he  soliloquized,  saying: 

I'm  a  usurper,  though  I  seem  a  swell; 
The  true  King  lies  within  a  dungeon  cell, 

and  I  wish  I  could  remember  more  of  it.     She  painted 


42  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

not  in  water-colour  only  but  in  oils,  and  could  make  any 
canvas  of  hers  recognizable.  For  instance,  you  knew  at 
once  that  this  was  the  Cathedral.  But  not  only  to  us 
was  she  not  a  usurper  but  a  swell;  she  was  a  Public 
Authoress,  and  wrote  stories,  printed  and  published, 
which  she  gave  us  to  read.  The  S.P.C.K.  published  them, 
and  the  whole  world  could  buy  them,  and  she  got  paid  for 
writing  them.  One  of  her  early  works  was  Elly's  Choice; 
there  was  a  poor  good  girl  called  Elly,  and  a  rather  nasty 
rich  cousin  called  Cordelia,  a  boy  called  Alick,  and  every- 
body who  mattered  was  about  nine  years  old.  A  piece  of 
stained  glass  was  broken  in  the  "Octagon  Room,"  and 
Cordelia  let  Elly  be  punished  for  it  though  Cordelia  had 
broken  it,  and  then  Elly  received  apologies  from  Grand- 
mamma Farmer,  and  Cordelia  learned  a  lesson,  and  all 
get  wonderfully  happy  again.  The  extreme  vividness 
with  which  I  remember  it,  surely  shows  that  the  book 
fulfilled  its  purpose,  that  is,  of  interesting  children.  Later 
Miss  Bramston  spread  larger  pinions,  and  I  do  not  think 
she  did  so  well.  To  our  intense  joy  she  came  back  to  us 
at  Truro  a  year  or  two  later,  and  was  as  lovable  as  ever. 
It  was  in  those  few  years  at  Lincoln  that  my  father 
began  to  be  individual,  instead  of  being  part  of  the  land- 
scape, and  as  I  got  to  know  him,  I,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
also  got  to  fear  him.  For  many  years  we  were  none  of 
us  at  our  ease  with  him,  as  we  always  were  with  my 
mother,  and  it  is  tragic  that  it  was  so,  for  I  know  that  he 
regarded  us  all  with  the  tenderest  love.  Often  and  often 
his  glorious  vitality,  keener  and  more  splendid  than  any 
I  have  ever  come  across,  enchanted  us,  and  the  sunlight 
of  him  was  of  a  midsummer  radiance.  But  he  had  no  idea 
how  blighting  his  displeasure  was  to  small  children,  and 
for  fear  of  incurring  it  we  went  delicately  like  Agag,  at- 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     43 

tending  so  strictly  to  our  behaviour  that  all  spontaneity 
withered.  Nothing  would  have  pleased  him  more,  had 
we  taken  him  into  our  confidence,  but  we  feared  his  dis- 
approval more  than  we  were  drawn  to  intimacy  with  him. 
It  was  always  uncertain  whether  he  would  not  pull  us 
up  with  stinging  rebukes  for  offences  that  were  certainly 
venial,  and  in  his  watchfulness  over  our  mental  and  moral 
education,  he  came  down  upon  faults  of  laziness  and 
carelessness  as  if  to  explode  such  tendencies  out  of  our 
nature.  Earnest  and  eager  all  through,  and  gloriously  and 
tumultuously  alive,  he  brought  too  heavy  guns  to  bear 
on  positions  so  lightly  fortified  as  children's  hearts,  and 
from  fear  of  the  bombardment  we  did  not  dare  to  make 
a  sortie  and  go  to  him.  Too  much  noise,  an  ordinary 
childish  carelessness  might,  so  we  believed,  bring  down 
on  us  a  schoolmaster's  reproof  instead  of  such  remon- 
strances as  we  got  from  my  mother,  which  were  com- 
pletely successful,  and  with  him  we  were  careful  to  be 
decorous  to  the  verge  of  woodenness.  We  had  washed 
hands  and  neat  hair  and  low  voices,  because  thus  we  min- 
imized the  risks  of  his  society.  We  were  never  frank 
with  him,  we  did  not  talk  about  the  things  that  interested 
us,  but  those  which  interested  him  and  which  we  thought 
he  would  wish  us  to  be  interested  in.  We  sat  on  the  edge 
of  our  chairs,  and  were  glad  to  be  gone.  If  we  had  been 
natural  with  him,  I  know  that  his  appreciation  of  that 
would  somehow  have  made  cement  between  us,  but  how 
are  you  to  be  natural  when,  rightly  or  wrongly,  you  are 
being  careful?  Tearing  spirits  moderated  themselves  on 
his  approach,  we  became  as  mild  as  children  on  chocolate 
boxes.  If  he  was  pleased  with  us,  we  breathed  sighs  of 
relief:  if  he  was  displeased  we  waited  for  the  clouds  to 
pass.    With  him  I,  at  least,  was  a  prig  and  a  hypocrite, 


44  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

assuming  a  demure  demeanour,  and  pretending  to  be  in- 
terested in  the  journal  of  Bishop  Heber  of  Bombay, 
which  I  still  maintain  is  a  dreary  work,  and  not  suited 
to  young  gentlemen  of  between  six  and  nine  years  old. 
But  the  journal  of  Bishop  Heber  was  given  me  as  a 
book  to  read  on  Sunday  and  helped  to  add  to  the  weari- 
someness  of  that  rather  appalling  day. 

Below  our  lovely  Museum,  and  opening  out  of  the 
winding  stone  stairs,  there  was  a  room  fitted  up  as  a 
chapel.  There  was  stained  glass  in  the  windows,  Arundel 
prints  on  the  walls,  and  a  quite  unique  harmonium  that 
cost  five  pounds.  The  keyboard  was  only  of  three  oc- 
taves, extending  from 


to 


^ 


which,  as  it  was  used  if  not  designed  to  be  as  an  instru- 
ment to  accompany  hymns,  seems  to  me  to  be  a  truly 
remarkable  compass,  since  in  order  to  accompany  hymns 
on  it  at  all,  you  had  to  leave  out  the  bass,  or  transfer  the 
whole  tune  to  the  higher  octave.  When  fully  extended 
for  purposes  of  melody,  it  stood  about  two  and  a  half 
feet  high,  but  on  its  black  japanned  front  were  two  steel 
catches  which,  if  pressed,  caused  it  to  subside  into  itself, 
the  foot-bellows  becoming  flat,  and  the  harmonium  itself 
so  small  that  a  man  could  put  it  under  his  arm.  Some- 
times when  playing  it  (as  I  was  presently  to  do)  a  too 
vigorous  knee,  in  the  movement  of  blowing,  would  touch 
these  catches,  and  it  collapsed  in  the  middle  of  the  hymn 
on  to  the  feet  of  the  organist,  dealing  them  a  severe  blow, 
and  necessitating  its  readjustment  before  the  hymn  pro- 
ceeded.    It  had  two  stops,  one  of  which  allowed  the  air 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     45 

to  get  to  its  pipes,  the  other  was  a  tremolo  which  caused 
its  voice  to  be  transfomied  into  a  series  of  swift  little 
bleats  with  pauses  in  between  like  a  soprano  lamb  much 
out  of  breath.  Perhaps  it  was  designed  to  take  the  solo 
part  of  a  flute  in  one  of  those  curious  bastard  orchestras 
on  which  Mr.  Oscar  Browning,  with  the  help  of  three 
undergraduates,  used  to  render  quartettes  in  his  rooms 
at  King's  College,  Cambridge,  but  here  it  was  as  an  ac- 
companying instrument  at  prayers  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Chancery,  and  took  its  part  in  the  religious  exercises  of 
the  morning. 

Sunday,  in  fact,  began  in  the  chapel  for  us  children 
after  the  early  service  for  our  elders  in  the  Cathedral. 
There  was  a  hymn,  my  father  read  certain  Sunday  pray- 
ers, and  then  came  breakfast.  The  collection  of  hymns 
which  we  used  in  chapel  was  Bishop  Wordsworth's  "Holy 
Year."  There  are  many  admirable  hymns  in  it,  others 
not  so  good.  For  instance,  the  one  for  the  feast  of  St. 
Philip  and  St.  J^ires  began: 

Let  us  emulate  the  names 
Of  St.  Philip  and  St.  James. 

Wc  children,  therefore,  could  hardly  help  making  up 
another  hymn  for  the  feast  of  St.  Simon  and  St.  Jude 
beginning  (and  then  stopping) : 

Let  us  try  to  be  as  good 
As  St.  Simon  and  St.  Jude. 

Matins  at  the  Cathedral  was  at  half-past  ten,  so  we 
often  bore  a  crude  sausage  there,  as  Juvenal  would  have 
said.  The  service  was  fully  choral,  and  the  piece  de  re- 
sistance^ as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  was  the  Litany, 
chanted  by  two  lay-clerks  at  a  desk  in  the  middle  of  the 


46  OUR  FAMILY  'AFFAIRS 

gangway  between  the  seats.  Together  I  think  (or  per- 
haps separately,  while  the  other  was  in  reserve)  they 
chanted  the  first  sentences  as  follows: 


tp^ 


Oh,  God,  tbt  Father  of  Htaren,    Han  mirc;  npon  ns  muer  -a    -    Ui       lianea 


The  choir  then  repeated  it  in  harmony,  and  the  same 
simple  musical  material  furnished  the  whole  of  the  sub- 
sequent responses. 

Sung  thus  very  slowly  the  Litany  took  a  full  quarter 
of  an  hour,  but  when  that  was  over,  I  was  at  liberty  to 
find  my  hat  and  steal  out.  I  used  to  put  my  hat,  a  round 
soft  felt  hat  with  elastic  under  the  chin,  in  an  aperture 
at  the  corner  of  our  seat  below  the  stalls,  which  had  in 
it  an  opening  for  ventilation.  Sometimes  my  hat  slipped 
down  this,  and  after  an  excited  groping  for  it,  it  came  up 
covered  with  the  dust  of  ages.  The  serv  ice  had  already 
lasted  an  hour  or  more,  and  I  made  my  jaded  way  back 
to  the  Chancery,  while  my  mother  and  sisters,  and  in  the 
holidays,  my  two  elder  brothers,  remained  for  the  rest  of 
the  service.  Martin  and  Arthur  occupied  stalls  near  my 
father  and  were  still  dim  figures  to  me,  at  home  only  for 
a  comparatively  few  weeks  in  the  year,  and  having  a  sit- 
ting-room of  their  own.  I  used  to  be  rather  glad  when 
they  went  to  school,  because  my  mother  invented  for  me 
the  title  of  "The  Eldest  Son  at  Home,"  which  could  only 
be  used  in  their  absence. 

In  the  afternoon  there  was  a  family  walk,  and  then 
Cathedral  service  again.  Then  came  a  reading  of  Sun- 
day books,  or  a  reading  of  the  Bible  with  my  father,  and 
we  went  utterly  fatigued  to  bed.     It  was  not  so  much 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     47 

the  plethora  of  religious  exercises  that  caused  this  lassi- 
tude, but  the  entire  absence  of  any  recreation.  Spare  time 
(and  there  was  not  much  of  it)  was  supposed  to  be  taken 
up  with  Bishop  Heber's  Journal,  Agathos  and  The  Rocky 
Island.  Once  a  certain  brightness  came  into  these  Sun- 
day readings,  because  we  were  allowed  a  book  called 
Sunday  Echoes  in  Week-day  Hours.  There  was  a  widowed 
mother  in  it,  and  her  boy  called  Cecil,  and  their  con- 
versation about  collects  was  so  excruciatingly  pious  that 
it  became  merely  humorous,  and  we  invented  fresh  Cecil- 
talk  among  ourselves.  We  once  indulged  in  this  before 
my  mother,  who  with  a  controlled  countenance  withdrew 
the  delightful  volume.  I  remember  waking  up  after  fall- 
ing asleep  one  Sunday  night,  and  hearing  Compline  going 
on  in  the  chapel  with  another  hymn,  and  thinking  with 
amazement  that  they  were  still  at  it.  In  the  way  of  a 
child,  I  think  I  was,  from  certain  evidence  that  will  ap- 
pear, religious,  but  to  put  it  quite  frankly,  I  was  sick  of 
the  whole  affair  by  Sunday  evening. 

I  cannot  chronologize  the  events  in  our  life  at  Lincoln, 
which  only  lasted  for  tliree  and  a  half  years,  and  I  do 
not  quite  know  when  the  Cathedral  services  began  to  wear 
a  perfectly  new  complexion  for  me.  The  reason  of  this 
was  that  I  was  violently  attracted  by  a  choir-boy,  or 
rather  a  chorister,  one  of  four,  who  instead  of  wearing  a 
surplice  like  the  common  choir-boy,  wore  a  long  dark 
blue  coat  down  to  the  knees  faced  with  white.  A  similar 
experience,  I  fancy,  is  almost  universal :  the  first  romantic 
affection  a  girl  is  conscious  of  is  nearly  always  toward^ 
a  girl,  and  in  the  same  way,  a  small  boy,  when  first  his 
physical  nature  begins  to  grope,  still  quite  blindly  and  in- 
nocently, in  the  misty  country  of  emotion,  is  pretty  cer- 
tain to  take  as  his  idol  for  secret  romantic  worship,  one 


48  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

of  his  own  sex.    It  was  so  at  any  rate  with  me,  and  in- 
stead of  the  Cathedral  services  being  of  incomparable 
tedium,  they  became  exciting    and    exalting.     He,  the 
nameless  he,  came  in  procession  at  the  end  of  the  choir- 
boys just  before  the  lay-clerks,  and  besides  having  this 
soul-stirring  effect  on  me,  he  woke  in  me,  by  means  of 
his  singing,  my  first  love  of  music.    He  sat  at  the  end  of 
the  choir  nearest  our  seat,  and  luckily  on  the  other  side, 
so  that  I  could  see  him  without  the  intervention  of  dull 
people's  heads.     I  could  hear  his  voice,  sexless  and  un- 
emotional, above  the  rest  of  the  trebles,  but  with  what 
emotion  did  that  voice  inspire  me  I     He  used  to  sing 
solos  as  well,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  sneaking  love  that 
I  have  still  for  Mendelssohn,  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
(unaccompanied)  he  sang  "The  night  is  departing,  de- 
pa-a-art  (A  in  alt)  ing."    I  would  have  welcomed  the  in- 
terminable Litany  becoming   literally   interminable,   so 
long  as  he  continued  singing,  "We  beseech  thee  to  hear  us. 
Good  Lord,"  with  his  chin  a  little  stuck  out,  and  his  eyes 
roving  about  the  pews.    Sometimes  I  thought  he  saw  me 
and  noticed  me,  and  then  my  imagination  took  wings  to 
itself,  and  I  saw  myself  meeting  him  somewhere  alone, 
him  in  his  chorister's  cope.     What  we  should  have  to 
say  to  each  other,  I  had  not  the  smallest  idea,  but  we 
should  be  together,  and  there  lay  completion.    It  was  due 
to  his  unconscious  influence  that  I  began  to  sing  loudly 
in  the  chapel  at  the  Chancery,  and  never  shall  I  forget  my 
father  once  saying  to  me,  "Perhaps  some  day  you  will 
sing  an  anthem  in  the  Cathedral."    That  supplied  a  fresh 
imaginative  chapter  to  my  secret  book;  I  should  be  a 
chorister  too,  and  sit  next  the  idol,  and  we  would  sing 
together.     I  was  not  egoistic  in  this  vision:  I  had  no 
thought  of  ravishing  the  world  by  the  beauty  of  my 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     49 

voice:  it  merely  became  a  sunlit  possibility  (after  all  my 
father  had  said  as  much)  that  I  should  sing  in  the  Cathe- 
dral. But  I  knew,  though  he  did  not,  that  I  should  be 
singing  with  the  chorister.  Thanks  to  my  idol,  Sunday 
became,  as  long  as  this  passion  lasted,  a  day  in  which  joy 
watered  the  arid  sands  of  Bishop  Heber's  Journal,  and 
made  it,  literally,  "break  forth  into  singing."  That  emo- 
tion, the  fulfilment  of  which  was  brought  into  the  realms 
of  possibility  by  my  father's  remark,  touched  such  re- 
'ligion  as  I  had  with  ecstasy,  and  I  added  to  my  prayers 
the  following  petition,  which  I  said  night  and  morning. 

"O  God,  let  me  enter  into  Lincoln  Cathedral  choir, 
and  abide  there  in  happiness  evermore  with  Thee !" 

Who  "Thee"  was  I  cannot  determine:  I  believe  it  to 
have  been  a  mixture  of  God  and  the  chorister,  and,  I 
think,  chiefly  the  chorister. 

This  quickening  of  emotion  gave  rise  to  a  sort  of  wak- 
ing vision  in  which  I  used  then  consciously  to  indulge, 
promising  myself  as  I  undressed  for  bed  a  night  of  Holy 
Convocation.  Two  minutes  of  Holy  Convocation  were 
about  the  duration  of  it,  and  then  I  went  to  sleep.  There 
was  a  hymn  in  the  "Holy  Year"  in  which  there  were 
lines 

To  Holy  Convocations 
The  silver  trumpets  call, 

and  with  that  and  the  chorister  as  yeast,  there  used  to 
bubble  out,  when  I  had  gone  to  bed,  this  curious  waking 
vision.  I  would  not  be  asleep  at  all,  but  with  open  eyes 
I  distinctly  saw  against  the  blackness  of  the  night  nursery 
a  line  of  golden  rails,  very  ornamental,  before  which  I 
knelt.  There  was  the  sound  of  silver  trumpets  in  my 
ears,  there  was  the  sound  of  the  chorister,  anthems  in  the 


50  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Cathedral,  and  the  presence  of  God.  But  all  these  things 
were  secret  and  apart,  never  told  of  to  this  day,  and 
they  did  not  in  the  least  interfere  with  wrestlings  in 
the  tower,  and  violent  games  of  rounders  and  the  pleas- 
ing terrors  of  hide-and-seek.  The  shrine  usually  stood 
shut,  but  when  it  opened  it  disclosed  blinding  splendours. 
The  Cathedral  had,  apart  from  the  chorister  and  the 
services,  certain  pains  and  pleasures  of  its  own.  Oc- 
casionally assizes  were  held  in  Lincoln,  and  then  on  Sun- 
day the  judges  would  attend  in  robes  of  majesty  with  full 
wigs  falling  on  to  their  shoulders.  They  walked  in  pro- 
cession up  the  choir,  and,  reaching  their  seats,  turned 
round  awful  pink  clean-shaven  faces  of  eternal  calm, 
awful  mouths  that  pronounced  death-sentences.  Once  to 
my  knowledge  there  was  a  murder-trial  at  Lincoln  and  a 
man  condemned  to  death  and  the  judge  on  that  occasion 
became  more  terrible  than  death  itself,  and  I  slunk  out 
after  the  Litany  with  apprehension  that  I  should  be 
called  back,  and  hear  some  appalling  sentence  pronounced 
on  me.  Again,  one  day,  a  canon  of  the  Cathedral  stepped 
backwards  through  a  skylight  and  was  killed  and  Great 
Tom,  the  big  bell  in  the  central  tower,  tolled  for  the 
funeral.  But  the  whole  circumstances  of  that  were  so 
interesting  that,  though  terror  was  mingled  with  them, 
they  were  more  exciting  than  terrible.  Wholly  delightful 
on  the  other  hand  was  a  scientific  demonstration  that  took 
place  in  the  nave.  A  long  cord  was  hung  from  one  of 
the  arches,  to  the  end  of  which  depended  a  heavy  lead 
weight.  On  the  pavement  beneath  it  there  was  marked 
out  a  circle  in  white  chalk,"  and  this  pendulum  was  then 
set  swinging.  As  the  hours  passed,  it  swung  in  a  different 
direction  from  that  in  which  it  was  started,  and  instead 
of  oscillating  up  and  down  the  nave  it  moved  along  the 


LINCOLN  AND  EARLY  EMOTIONS     51 

transepts,  thus  demonstrating  the  motion  of  the  earth. 
Why  that  delightful  piece  of  science  was  shown  in  the 
Cathedral  I  have  no  idea;  certain  it  is,  however,  that  my 
mother  took  me  to  see  the  pendulum  after  breakfast  one 
morning  and  again  before  tea  when  it  was  swinging  in 
quite  another  direction.  I  never  had  any  doubts  about 
the  rotary  movement  of  the  earth  after  that,  nor,  as  far 
as  I  can  remember,  before. 


CHAPTER  III 

LINCOLN    AND    DEMONIACAL    POSSESSION 

THOSE  three  and  a  half  years  at  Lincoln  appear  to 
have  lasted  for  decades,  so  eventful  was  the  un- 
folding of  the  world,  and  all  the  years  which  have  passed 
since  then,  with  their  travels  to  many  foreign  lands,  and 
climbings  of  perilous  peaks,  seem  to  have  contained  no 
exploration  so  thrilling  as  the  revelation  of  Riseholme, 
where  lived  Bishop  Wordsworth  of  Lincoln,  who  wrote 
the  "Holy  Year,"  and  his  wife,  and  his  family  and 
Janet  the  housekeeper.  (The  latter,  like  Mrs.  Words- 
worth, had  ringlets  down  the  sides  of  her  face,  and  dis- 
pensed Marie  biscuits  and  cowslip  wine  in  unstinted  pro- 
fusion.) The  family,  too,  were  interesting,  for  one  daugh- 
ter when  she  laughed  said,  "Sss-sss,"  and  another,  "Kick- 
kick-kick,"  and  the  Bishop  himself  had  a  face  like  a  lion, 
and  a  hollow  ecclesiastical  voice.  My  sisters  considered 
him  very  formidable,  but  I  was  not  afraid  of  him,  chiefly 
because  at  an  early  stage  of  our  acquaintance  he  gave  me 
an  ink-bottle  of  pottery,  with  a  gilded  lion  (like  him- 
self) on  top  of  it,  and  a  receptacle  to  hold  sand  for  the 
blotting  of  your  letter,  if  you  had  managed  to  write  it. 
This  argued  an  amiable  disposition,  and  when  I  came  in 
contact  with  him,  I  was  conscious  of  no  embarrassment. 

In  Xanadu  did  Kubla  Khan 
A  stately  pleasure-dome  decree, 

but  Xanadu  was  nothing  to  Riseholme  for  domes  and 

62 


DEMONIACAL  POSSESSION  53 

stateliness.  There  were  two  lakes  peopled  with  dace  and 
water-lilies  and  pike  and  swans,  and  an  island  where  the 
swans  nested,  and  a  sluice,  around  which  the  water  was 
of  fabulous  depth,  where  we  fished  for  dace.  There  was 
a  boat-house,  on  the  roof  of  which  in  the  autumn  a  great 
chestnut  tree  used  to  shed  its  fruit,  bursting  the  husks, 
and  disclosing  the  shiny  brown  kernels ;  and  at  Riseholme, 
as  far  as  I  remember,  we  were  allowed  to  do  precisely 
as  we  pleased.  We  used  to  go  out  alone  in  the  boat,  with 
paste  for  bait,  and  splash  the  water  at  each  other,  and 
come  home  with  a  couple  of  dace,  dirty  and  wet  and 
hopelessly  happy.  Swans  used  to  scold  and  hiss  at  us, 
the  boat  did  everything  but  capsize,  and  seons  of  bliss 
were  our  portion.  There  were  water-snails  to  be  col- 
lected, if  the  fish  would  not  bite  (they  seldom  did),  and 
wreaths  of  stinking  water-weed,  and  broken  fragments 
of  swan  eggs  lined  inside  with  a  tough  kind  of  parch- 
ment, which  we  called  "swan-paper."  Then  dace  (when 
there  were  any)  were  cooked  for  tea,  and  provided  a  bony 
mouthful  for  one;  the  swan-paper  was  taken  home  for 
the  Museum,  together,  on  one  glorious  occasion,  with  the 
addled  swan's  egg;  and  the  wreaths  of  stinking  water- 
weed  were  laid  out  on  sheets  of  cartridge-paper  and 
pressed.  This  pressing  resulted  in  an  awful  fricassee  of 
weed  and  paper,  and  then  something  else  occupied  us. 
On  the  banks  of  the  lake,  at  intervals,  appeared  a  sympa- 
thetic Bishop  with  daughters,  to  whom  we  shouted  the 
results  of  our  explorations,  and  one  of  the  daughters  said, 
"Kick-kick-kick,"  and  another,  "Sss-sss-sss."  For  larger 
people,  such  as  Arthur,  there  was  more  grown-up  fishing, 
and  once  with  a  spoon-bait  he  caught  a  pike  that  weighed 
three  pounds.     But  not  even  the  sympathetic  and  com- 


54  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

bined  appetites  of  the  juniors  could  finish  that  toothsome 
dish. 

Then  there  were  expeditions  into  the  vast  forest  that 
lay  below  the  sluice,  where  marsh-marigolds  grew,  and 
the  willow  shoots  flew  back  and  slapped  the  faces  of 
those  who  followed  the  leader  in  these  excursions. 
Maggie  and  I  formed  a  small  club  or  society  (I  suppose 
Nellie  was  too  old  then,  being  about  eleven)  to  get  lost 
in  this  pathless  place,  but  we  never  quite  succeeded  in 
doing  so.  Just  as  we  thought  there  was  no  hope  of  our 
ever  being  discovered,  in  which  case  we  proposed  to  live 
on  leaves  and  drink  the  water  that  came  from  the  sluice 
in  a  small  stream,  Beth's  voice  would  sound  quite  near  at 
hand,  or,  by  mistake,  we  came  back  into  the  meadow  be- 
yond the  lake,  or  into  the  path  that  bordered  it.  So  in- 
stead, we  collected  chestnuts,  if  there  was  not  a  marine 
or  lacustrine  expedition,  and  ground  up  the  kernels  into  a 
nutritive  powder,  or  mixed  it  with  lake-water  to  form  a 
paste.  About  this  time  Maggie  and  I  formed  a  special 
alliance,  which  continued  till  the  end  of  her  life,  and  the 
light  of  it  was  never  quite  obscured  by  those  dusky  years 
of  darkened  mind  through  which  her  way  led,  for  she 
was  always  willing  to  talk  of  the  days  at  Lincoln,  and 
the  collections  and  the  amazing  stories  which  we  invented 
to  beguile  our  walks.  They  were  compounded  of  strange 
adventures,  with  the  finding  of  gold  and  immense 
diamonds,  of  desert  islands  and  bandits,  and  the  central 
figures  were  she  and  I  and  the  collie.  Watch.  All  was 
coloured  with  the  vividness  of  dreams,  and  the  serious- 
ness of  childhood. 

Riseholme  was  about  two  and  a  half  miles  from  Lin- 
coln, and  the  most  exciting  experience  I  ever  had  in  its 
connection  was  that  of  being  sent  over  there  by  my  father 


DEMONIACAL  POSSESSION  55 

with  a  note  for  the  Bishop.  I  took  Watch  with  me,  and 
"Kick-kick-kick"  and  "Sss-sss-sss"  were  so  entertaining 
and  the  Bishop  so  long  in  writing  his  answer  that  it  was 
nearly  dark  before,  with  sinkings  of  the  heart,  I  started 
on  my  return.  "Sss-sss-sss"  I  think  offered  to  accompany 
me  till  I  got  out  of  the  loneliness  of  the  road  and  in  touch 
with  the  lights  of  Lincoln,  but  I  was  too  cowardly  to  say 
I  was  afraid  of  the  darkness  and  the  emptiness,  and 
started  off  alone.  Wanting  to  get  it  over  as  quickly  as 
possible,  I  ran,  and  was  frightened  at  the  noise  of  my 
running.  Then,  one  after  the  other,  my  stockings  came 
down,  and  I  thought  that  the  strip  of  whiteness  would 
encourage  highwaymen  to  attack  me,  and  so  had  to  stop 
every  third  step  to  pull  them  up.  Then  I  talked  to  Watch 
in  order  to  hearten  myself,  saying,  in  so  many  words, 
"Watch,  aren't  we  benighted?"  (new  word)  and  then 
was  frightened  at  the  sound  of  my  voice  in  the  frosty 
stillness.  But  there  was  pleasure  in  this  sense  of  ad- 
venture, and  I  was  given  an  egg  for  tea. 

There  were  expeditions  to  Nocton,  where  in  a  wood 
of  vast  extent  the  whole  ground  was  white  with  lilies  of 
the  valley  growing  wild,  and  the  still  languid  air  beneath 
the  trees  swooned  with  the  scent  of  them,  which,  I  am 
told  (though  never  since  that  day  have  I  been  able  to 
believe  it),  is  extremely  pleasant.  For  the  last  of  these 
expeditions  to  Nocton  had  a  tragic  sequel  so  far  as  I 
was  concerned.  We  had  lunch  there  after  picking  lilies 
all  the  morning,  and  I  suppose  I  ate  too  much,  and  it 
began  to  rain  as  we  drove  homewards  so  that  the  car- 
riage, full  of  hot  children  and  lilies  of  the  valley,  had  to 
be  closed.  The  effect  was  that  I  was  exceedingly  un- 
well and  never  since  that  day  have  been  able  to  dissociate 
the  smell  of  lilies  of  the  valley  from  being  sick.     To 


56  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

balance  that  bilious  day  was  a  glorious  expedition  to 
Skegness,  where  I  saw  the  sea  for  the  first  time,  and  fell 
in  love  with  it  with  a  devotion  that  has  never  wavered.  I 
took  with  me  a  small  black  handbag  in  which  to  stow 
the  treasures  of  the  shore,  among  which  I  rather  mis- 
takenly selected  a  dead  decaying  skate.  An  odour  as 
unpleasant  to  others  as  was  that  of  lilies  of  the  valley  to 
me  filled  the  railway  carriage  on  the  return,  which  was 
eventually  traced  to  my  bag,  and  the  dead  skate  which 
would  have  looked,  anyhow,  interesting  in  the  Museum, 
was  thrown  out  of  the  window.  That  first  impression 
of  the  sea  was  confirmed  by  summer  holidays  spent  at 
Torquay,  and  it  was  there,  I  think,  that  I  must  have 
learned  to  swim,  and  then  have  forgotten  that  I  knew 
how.  For  when  some  years  later  I  went  to  Marlborough 
and  began  to  learn  in  the  school  bathing-place,  I  in- 
stantly did  swim,  and  the  old  instructor  who  sat  with 
small  boys  in  a  strap  at  the  end  of  a  fishing-rod,  said 
with  disgust,  "Why  you  swims  already  I"  Torquay  was 
responsible  for  a  whole  host  of  further  activities,  for  it 
was  there,  I  believe,  that  we  began  those  scribblings 
which  subsequently  developed  into  the  Saturday  Mag- 
azine (an  industry  so  important  that  it  must  presently 
have  a  paragraph  to  itself)  and  it  was  certainly  there 
that  there  were  hot  twisty  rolls  for  breakfast  which  were 
only  to  be  obtained  by  reciting  some  sort  of  rhyme,  of 
which  one  of  my  mother's  seemed  to  me  to  touch  the  high- 
water  mark  of  inspired  wit  and  poetry.    This  ran: 

Bread  is  the  staff  of  life,  the  proverbs  say, 
So  give  me  of  its  twisted  staff  to-day. 

Surely  that  was  far  better  than  a  miserable  effusion  by 
Bishop  Temple,  of  Exeter,  who  merely  said : 


DEMONIACAL  POSSESSION  57 

An  egg, 
I  beg, 

and  was  sycophantically  applauded  by  the  grown-up 
people  present.  You  could  have  eggs  without  making 
rhymes  .  .  .  but  perhaps  he  didn't  understand,  and  any- 
how it  was  no  use  wasting  time  over  him.  There,  among 
the  diversions  of  Torquay  we  all  violently  embraced  the 
career  of  artists,  and  drew  miles  of  cottages  and  churches 
and  painted  leagues  of  the  English  Channel.  The  shell 
collection  was  started  then,  so  also  collections  of  wild 
flowers,  and  there  was  bathing  and  Devonshire  cream, 
and  a  steep  garden  with  gladioli  and  aloes  in  its  beds.  I 
think  my  birthday  must  have  been  celebrated  there,  for 
certainly  I  received  a  present  of  a  terra-cotta  teapot  with 
lines  of  blue  enamel  on  it,  after  receiving  which  it  was 
difficult  to  imagine  circumstances  that  could  have  the 
power  to  hurt  one  ever  again. 

Never  can  I  sufficiently  admire  or  be  sufficiently  thank- 
ful for  the  encouragement  my  father  and  mother  both 
gave  to  these  multitudinous  hobbies,  for  hobbies,  as  they 
well  knew,  whether  literary,  artistic,  or  scientific,  are 
a  priceless  panacea  for  the  preservation  of  youth,  and  the 
stimulation  of  the  world-wonder  of  beauty.  At  this  time 
we  were  all  of  us  draughtsmen,  ornithologists,  concholo- 
gists,  geologists,  poets,  and  literary  folk:  we  all  drew  and 
wrote  and  collected  shells  and  birds'  eggs,  and  smashed 
stones  in  order  to  discover  fossils.  I  claim  no  measure 
of  eminence  or  even  promise  in  any  of  us,  but  that  is  not 
the  point.  The  point  is  that  under  parental  encourage- 
ment we  did  all  these  things  with  extreme  zest  and  in- 
terest. In  sports  and  games  my  father  gave  us  less  sup- 
port, for  he  looked  on  them  only  as  a  recreation  which 


58  OUR  FA3I1LY  AFFAIRS 

would  enable  the  mind  to  get  to  work  again,  and  as  hav- 
ing no  intrinsic  value  beyond  what  a  brisk  walk  could 
have  brought.  But  we  had  enough  keenness  among  our- 
selves for  these,  and  a  ball  and  something  to  hit  it  with 
filled  the  rest  of  the  vacant  hours  with  ardour.  For  music, 
among  the  arts,  he  had  likewise  no  sympathy  at  all:  he 
liked  the  singing  of  Psalms  and  Handel  and  hymns  en- 
tirely because  of  the  words,  and  when  he  joined  in  the 
h}-mns  in  chapel,  he  produced  a  buzzing  noise  that  bore 
no  relation  to  any  known  melody.  By  this  time  my  own 
love  of  music,  sown  in  me  by  the  adored  chorister,  had 
taken  firm  hold,  and  with  help  from  my  mother  to  start 
me,  and  an  elementary-  book  of  instruction,  music  became 
to  me  a  thing  apart.  I  wanted  no  companionship  or 
s}'mpathizer  in  it,  and  though  as  far  as  execution  on  the 
piano  went  I  was  leagues  behind  my  sisters,  I  felt  certain 
in  my  own  mind  that  I  had  opened  a  door  for  myself  into 
a  kingdom  to  which  they  did  not  really  penetrate  though 
they  could  execute  (both  counting  very  loud)  Diabelli's 
Celebrated  Duet  in  D  which  I  considered  below  contempt, 
though  it  was  verj-  clever  of  them  to  move  their  fingers 
so  fast.  At  that  time  my  mother,  who  had  always  an 
Athenian  disposition  with  regard  to  the  joy  of  a  new 
thing,  went  in  for  a  course  of  instruction  somehow  con- 
nected with  Dr.  Farmer  of  Harrow.  There  was  founded 
at  Lincoln  a  Farmer  Societj"  of  some  kind,  and  the  ladies 
met  once  a  week  or  thereabouts  and  played  easy  Bach 
to  each  other,  and  one  of  the  most  rapturous  Lincoln 
days  was  a  certain  wet  afternoon,  when  the  Society  met 
at  the  Chancer)'.  My  sisters  and  I  were  allowed  to  sit 
in  the  window-seat,  provided  we  remained  quiet,  and 
we  all  had  acid  drops  to  suck,  and  books  to  read  when 
we  got  tired  of  listening.    They  were  soon  deep  in  Little 


DEMONIACAL  POSSESSION  59 

Women  and  Good  Wives ^  but  for  me,  in  spite  of  a  tooth- 
ache, I  listened  in  an  entranced  bliss  to  a  series  of 
Gavottes  and  Sarabands  and  Allemandes,  while  the  rain 
beat  on  the  windows,  and  the  melodious  dusk  gathered. 
The  time  of  the  year  must  have  been  near  Christmas,  for 
I  feel  as  if  I  went  straight  from  there  to  the  nurser}-,  on 
the  floor  of  which  was  laid  out  a  large  sheet  piled  with 
holly  and  laurel  and  ivy,  out  of  which  we  made  wreaths 
for  the  doors.  The  remaining  leaves,  when  all  was  done, 
were  put  in  the  fire  and  roared  and  crackled  up  the  chim- 
ney, filling  the  room  with  an  aromatic  smell  of  burning, 
that  ranks  next  in  preciousness  of  recollection  to  the  smell 
of  lilac. 

It  was  in  this  last  year  at  Lincoln  that  I  had  a  fit  of 
demoniacal  possession,  for  I  committed  three  heinous 
crimes  one  after  the  other.  On  a  shelf  in  the  drawing- 
room  with  Dresden  figures  and  vases  there  was  an  Easter 
t^g  which  had  been  sent  to  my  father.  It  was  decorated 
with  a  cross  and  a  crown  and  a  halo  and  some  flowers, 
and  was  without  doubt  a  goose's  egg.  This  trophy  was 
singularly  sacred,  and  my  father  had  told  us  that  we 
were  never  to  touch  it.  Because  of  that  prohibition  I  wet- 
ted my  finger  and  rubbed  off  a  piece  of  the  crown  and  the 
halo.  I  followed  this  up  by  stealing  a  quantity-  of  sugar 
from  the  tea-table  in  a  yellow  box  which  I  think  had 
contained  sweetmeats,  and  kept  it  on  my  knees  under  the 
table-cloth.  I  suppose  I  then  forgot  about  it  and.  get- 
ting up,  I  caused  it  to  fall  to  the  ground,  and  spill  its 
contents  all  over  the  floor. 

The  third  piece  of  devil  work  was  far  more  daring  and 
inexplicable.  I  had  a  cold  one  day  and  was  not  al- 
lowed to  go  out,  but  was  left  instead  by  the  fire  in  the 
sitting-room  belonging  to  my  two  elder  brothers.    There 


60  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

was  a  white  sheepskin  rug  in  front  of  it,  and  as  soon  as 
my  father  with  the  four  eldest  children  had  left  the 
house,  I  ladled  the  whole  of  the  burning  coals  out  of  the 
grate  and  put  them  on  the  hearthrug.  An  appalling 
stench  arose  as  the  wool  caught  fire;  the  place  was  filled 
with  smoke,  and  I  left  the  room,  quite  impenitent  and 
merely  interested  to  know  what  on  earth  would  happen 
next.  The  smoke  must  by  now  have  penetrated  to  the 
rest  of  the  house,  for  I  met  my  mother  running  down- 
stairs, and  she  asked  me  if  I  knew  what  that  smell  was. 
I  told  her  that  I  didn't,  and  went  up  to  the  nursery. 
Presently,  having  extinguished  the  fire,  she  followed  me, 
and  again  asked  me  if  I  was  sure  I  didn't  know  anything 
about  it.  Upon  which  I  told  her  that  it  was  I  who  had 
emptied  the  fire  on  to  the  rug.  A  fine  spanking  followed, 
which  I  did  not  in  the  least  resent,  and  I  was  told  to  go 
to  bed  till  I  was  sorry.  I  never  was  sorry — for  it  was 
demoniacal  possession — but  I  suppose  that  some  time  I 
must  have  got  up  again. 

Friendships  had  sprung  up  between  us  and  other  chil- 
dren at  Mrs.  Giles's  day-school,  and  among  these  was 
May  Copeland,  who  was  Nellie's  particular  friend,  and 
told  us  that  she  was  descended  from  Oliver  Cromwell. 
This  was  very  distinguished,  and  I  fully  meant  to  marry 
her.  There  was  also  a  girl  whose  name  I  forget,  and  she 
was  responsible  for  one  of  the  greatest  surprises  of  my 
young  life,  for  one  day  while  she  and  I  were  looking 
for  a  tennis  ball  in  the  bushes,  she  took  my  hands  and 
drew  them  upwards  against  her  bosom.  I  found  to  my 
astonishment  that  instead  of  being  flat,  she  had  two 
swellings  there,  and  I  asked  her  if  they  were  bruises.  She 
seemed  rather  offended  and  said  that  they  certainly  were 
not.    Then  there  was  Willie  Burton  to  whom  I  told,  in 


DEMONIACAL  POSSESSION  61 

the  spirit  of  bravado,  what  I  had  done  to  the  sheep- 
skin hearthrug,  and  he  thought  it  very  magnificent.  He 
used  to  get  phosphorus  matches  from  his  father's  table, 
which  was  grand,  for  we  only  used  Bryant  and  May's 
safety  matches,  and  our  great  game  was  to  retire  into 
the  blackness  of  the  tool-house,  wet  the  palms  of  our 
hands,  and  rub  on  the  phosphorus  which  glowed  with  a 
mysterious  light.  He  had  an  awful  story  which  I  en- 
tirely believed  of  an  aunt  of  his  on  whom  a  practical 
joker  played  a  dreadful  trick,  for  he  wrote  up  in  phos- 
phorus above  his  aunt's  bed  the  text,  "This  night  shall 
thy  soul  be  required  of  thee."  On  which  his  poor  aunt 
went  raving  mad,  and  I  got  a  general  distrust  of  phos- 
phorus. .  .  .  Willie  Burton  was  dressed  in  sailor  clothes, 
and  I  in  a  short  jacket  and  knickerbockers,  and  one  day 
with  a  sense  of  almost  excessive  adventure,  we  undressed 
in  the  tool-house  and  each  put  on  the  other's  clothes. 
We  then  opened  the  door  in  order  to  let  daylight  behold 
this  transformation,  and  swiftly  changed  back  again. 
That  was  a  wonderful  thing  to  have  done,  and  when  we 
met  next  day  at  the  gymnasium  we  looked  at  each  other's 
clothes  with  glances  of  secret  knowledge. 

My  final  remembrance  at  Lincoln  is  perhaps  the  most 
vivid  of  all,  for  the  sense  of  it  was  not  that  of  a  momen- 
tary impression,  but  of  a  growing  reality.  Every  eve- 
ning now  we  came  down  to  my  mother's  room  and  for 
half  an  hour  before  bedtime  she  read  Dickens  aloud  to 
us,  sitting  in  front  of  the  fire.  She  liked  to  have  her 
hair  stroked,  so  I  used  to  stand  behind  her  chair,  passing 
my  fingers  over  the  smooth  brown  hair  above  her  fore- 
head, and  listening  to  the  story  of  the  Kenwigses.  Her 
voice  and  the  contact  of  my  fingers  on  her  hair  wakened 
in  me  the  knowledge  of  how  I  loved  her. 


CHAPTER  IV 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO 


ONE  morning  a  most  exciting  bomb-shell  exploded 
in  the  Chancery  and  blew  Lincoln  into  fragments. 
It  came  in  the  shape  of  two  letters,  one  from  the 
Prime  Minister,  Lord  Beaconsfield,  offering  my  father  the 
Bishopric  of  the  newly  created  see  of  Truro  in  Cornwall, 
the  other  from  Queen  Victoria,  saying  that  she  personally 
hoped  that  he  would  accept  it.  These  letters  must  have 
arrived  a  few  days  before  we  knew  of  them,  for  that  day 
my  father  told  us  that  he  had  thought  it  over  and  had 
settled  to  go.  I  felt  nothing  whatever  except  wild  de- 
light and  excitement,  unmingled  as  far  as  I  am  aware, 
with  any  regret  for  leaving  Lincoln,  and  all  the  time 
that  we  were  out  for  our  walk  that  morning  Maggie  and 
I,  instead  of  telling  each  other  stories,  whispered  with 
secret  smiles,  "The  Lord  Bishop  of  Truro  I  The  Lord 
Bishop  of  Truro!"  We  were  vastly  proud  of  my  father, 
and  thought  it  most  sensible  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  and  the 
Queen  to  have  selected  him.* 

The  fresh  move  came  in  the  spring  of  1877,  ^^^  ^^ 
that  loveliest  of  all  seasons  the  train  slid  one  evening 
across  the  tall  wooden  viaducts  with  the  lights  of  Truro 
pricking  the  dusk,  where  the  town  lay  below,  and  the 
enchantment  of  Cornwall  instantly  began  to  weave  its 

•Lord  Beaconsfield  seems  to  have  been  as  pleased  as  we  were  at  my 
father's  accepting  the  bishopric,  for  he  wrote  exultantly  to  a  friend,  say- 
ing, "Well,  we  have  got  a  Bishop." 

62 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO        63 

spell.  The  new  home  was  the  Vicarage  of  Kenwyn,  a 
small  village  high  on  the  western  hills  and  perhaps  a 
mile  from  the  centre  of  the  town.  As  a  house  it  was 
not  comparable  for  amenities  and  mysteries  with  the 
Chancery  of  Lincoln,  but  what  was  the  garden  at  Lin- 
coln, for  all  its  towers  and  rolling  banks,  in  comparison 
to  the  garden  here  and  the  fields  and  water-haunted  val- 
leys which  encompassed  it*?  The  garden  at  Lincoln, 
confined  within  its  brick  walls  and  planted  down  in  the 
middle  of  a  town,  was  like  some  caged  animal  that  hera 
roamed  wild  and  untamed. 

Oh,  unforgettable  morning  when  for  the  first  time  I 
awoke  in  the  new  house,  and  saw  on  the  ceiling  the  light 
of  the  early  sun  that  shone  in  through  the  copse  outside, 
making  a  green  and  yellow  dapple  on  the  whitewash  I 
The  house  was  still  silent;  opposite  me  was  Hugh's  bed 
with  his  head  half-hidden  in  the  sheet,  and  I  dressed 
stealthily  and  went  downstairs  and  out.  From  the  lawn 
I  could  see  the  viaduct  over  which  we  had  come,  and 
below  it  the  misty  roofs  of  the  town,  with  one  steeple 
piercing  the  vapour  into  sunlight.  Then  the  mist  faded 
like  a  frosty  breath  and  beyond  the  town  there  stretched 
broad  and  shining  the  estuary  of  the  Fal.  Instead  of  the 
sorry  serge  of  ivy,  the  house  was  clad  with  tree-fuchsias, 
and  magnolia,  and  climbing  roses  and  japonica:  never 
was  there  such  a  bower  of  a  habitation.  On  that  April 
morning  no  doubt  the  fuchsia  and  the  roses  were  not  in 
flower,  but  looking  back  now,  that  moment  seems  to  have 
sucked  into  itself  the  decorations  of  all  the  months,  mak- 
ing in  my  mind  a  composite  picture,  from  which  I  cannot 
now  disentangle  the  true  component  parts.  But  surely 
there  was  a  gorse  bush  at  the  corner  of  the  house,  on 
the  edge  of  the  copse  through  which  the  sun  had  shone, 


64  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

and  surely  it  was  on  that  morning  that  I  found  a  mossy 
feathery  little  football  of  a  tit's  nest,  woven  inextricably 
among  the  spines  of  the  gorse,  and  a  virago  of  an  infin- 
itesimal bird  peeped  out  of  the  circular  door,  when  I  drew 
too  near,  and  scolded  me  well  for  my  intrusion.  I  passed 
up  the  winding  path  that  led  through  the  shrubbery,  and 
found  a  circular  pleasance  with  a  summer-house.  I  went 
cautiously  past  a  row  of  beehives;  I  came  through  a  door 
into  a  lane  below  the  churchyard,  where  ferns  (the  sort 
of  things  not  known  before  to  exist  in  other  localities 
than  greenhouses  and  tables  laid  for  diimer-parties)  grew 
quite  carelessly  in  the  crevices,  and  so  back,  now  breath- 
lessly scampering  and  surfeited  with  impressions  past 
woodshed  and  haystack  and  stable,  and  upstairs  again 
with  heart  and  shoes  alike  drenched  with  the  spring-dew. 
All  that  ensuing  summer,  lessons  I  fancy  were  con- 
siderably relaxed,  and  the  lovely  months  passed  like  some 
fugue  built  on  the  subjects  of  that  early  walk,  coloured, 
amplified  and  decorated.  My  father  gave  us  a  prize  for 
botany  (all  specimens  to  be  personally  gathered,  person- 
ally pressed,  and  mounted  on  sheets  of  cartridge  paper 
with  the  English,  and,  if  possible,  the  Latin  name  written 
below),  and  we  scoured  the  hedges  and  liquid  water-sides 
and  the  edges  of  the  growing  hay  meadows,  with  a  definite 
object  in  view.  Study  was  necessitated  by  the  addition 
of  those  names  (Latin  if  possible),  but  this,  like  some 
homoeopathic  dose  conveyed  in  honey,  was  drowned  in  the 
delight  of  rambling  explorations.  The  appetite  of  the 
collector  was  whetted ;  there  was  a  certain  craving  created 
for  exact  knowledge,  but  far  above  that  was  the  interest 
in  the  loveliness  that  we  should  not  otherwise  have 
noticed,  and  the  admiration  which  the  interest  engendered. 
Definitely  also  I  think  I  trace  a  love  of  words  in  them- 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO         65 

selves  which  this  studied  collecting  gave  us,  for  what  child 
could  write  "centaury"  or  "meadow-sweet,"  "bee-orchis," 
"comfrey,"  "loosestrife,"  or  in  more  exalted  spheres, 
"Osmunda  regalis"  on  the  virgin  sheet  of  cartridge 
paper  without  tasting  something  of  the  flavour  of  these 
blossom-like  syllables'?  Or  what  child  could  fail  to 
whoop  with  gladness  when  one  of  us  brought  an  unknown 
bloom  to  a  certain  botanist  friend  of  my  father's,  and 
was  apologetically  told  that  its  name  was  "Stinking  Arch- 
angel"^ For  in  the  lives  of  all  of  us,  words  and  due  dis- 
crimination in  their  use  came  to  play  a  considerable  part, 
and  somewhere  we  hoarded  these  rich  additions  to  our 
vocabulary.  My  sister  Nellie  won  the  prize,  and  I  re- 
member that  she  afterwards  confessed  to  me  that  she 
had  stolen  some  of  my  pressed  specimens  and  added  them 
to  her  own.  I  never  was  more  astonished,  and  class  this 
lapse  of  hers  with  instances  already  given  of  my  own 
demoniacal  possession  in  the  matter  of  the  Easter  egg 
and  the  sheepskin  hearthrug.  We  both  agreed  that  she 
could  not  possibly  resign  the  prize,  for  that  would  lead 
to  investigation,  and  she  gave  me  a  shilling  by  way  of 
compensation. 

Birds'  eggs  as  a  collection  had  hitherto  been  represented 
in  the  Museum  by  one  addled  swan's  egg,  but  now  they 
took  rank  among  the  objects  of  existence.  Here  my 
father  dictated  the  conditions  under  which  they  might 
be  acquired,  namely,  that  no  egg  was  to  be  taken  from 
any  nest  unless  that  nest  contained  four,  and  under  no 
circumstances  was  more  than  one  to  be  taken.  There 
was  of  course  no  questioning  his  decision,  but  it  seemed 
a  pity  to  leave  the  great  tit  in  the  gorse  bush  to  bring 
up  a  family  of  fifteen  after  our  levy  had  been  made,  and 
never  to  be  able  to  get  a  wood-pigeon's  egg  at  all,  since 


66  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

those  prudent  birds  refused  to  lay  more  than  two.  But 
here  Charles  the  groom  shone  forth  gilded  with  the  glory 
of  celestial  charity,  for  he  came  to  me  one  morning  with 
his  entire  collection  of  eggs  and  "would  I  accept  of 
them^"  Was  there  ever  such  a  groom?  And  among 
these  was  a  pair  of  wood-pigeon's  eggs,  so  those  parsi- 
monious parents  were  thwarted. 

For  a  while  games  were  quite  in  abeyance,  romantic 
natural  history  held  the  field.  For  consider:  my  sister 
Maggie  and  I  had  heard  that  otters  were  found  in  Corn- 
wall, and  on  that  simple  fact  we  built  up  the  following 
fairy-like  adventure.  There  was  a  round  copse,  rather 
lonely,  on  the  edge  of  our  fields ;  from  it  the  ground  de- 
clined in  a  steep  down  to  the  bottom  of  a  valley,  through 
which  ran  a  stream  so  small  that  by  wetting  only  one  foot 
you  could  get  across  it  at  its  widest  part.  But  it  ran 
below  bushes  and  under  steep  banks,  and  it  seemed  highly 
probable  that  some  of  these  Cornish  otters  lived  there. 
Well,  otters  went  about  on  land  as  well  as  in  the  water, 
and  the  lure  of  imagination  pictured  them  taking  a  nice 
walk  up  this  down  and  coming  to  the  lonely  copse.  This 
grew  very  thick  in  brushwood,  through  which  the  otters 
(now  indigenous  in  the  copse)  would  certainly  walk.  So 
we  hung  nooses  of  string  here  and  there  a  foot  or  so  from 
the  ground  so  that  the  otter  might,  in  his  walks,  insert 
his  head  in  the  noose  which  would  then  be  pulled  tight, 
and  we  should  come  and  capture  him.  This  gave  rise  to 
further  considerations;  he  might  struggle,  and  get  hurt 
if  not  strangled  in  the  noose,  so  we  must  clearly  be 
on  the  spot  to  loosen  the  noose,  and  substitute  for  it  a 
chain  and  collar  of  one  of  the  dogs.  But  if  the  otter 
saw  us,  he  would  probably  gallop  back  over  the  down 
to  his  stream,  so  we  built  a  hut  woven  of  withies  between 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO        67 

two  trees  in  which  we  could  lie  perdus^  and  watch  for  the 
otter.  Then  we  should  lead  him  chained  to  the  stables, 
and  gradually  tame  him  till  he  could  come  out  walking 
with  us  in  company  with  Watch  and  the  nanny-goat  which 
already  formed  part  of  the  family  procession.  (A  second 
goat,  called  Capricorn,  was  presently  added,  but  he  had 
an  odious  habit  of  standing  upright  on  his  hind  legs  and 
hurling  himself  like  a  battering-ram  against  the  hinder- 
parts  of  the  unobservant,  and  when  harnessed  to  a  small 
truck  which  was  used  for  gardening  purposes,  galloped 
with  it  at  such  speed  that  sparks  flew  from  its  wheels 
as  they  spumed  the  gravel.) 

A  much  larger  bowl  was  now  granted  us  for  the  aquari- 
um, and  the  spa  and  madrepores  carefully  brought  from 
Lincoln  (though  the  preserved  hornet  seemed  to  have 
been  forgotten)  did  not  more  than  cover  the  bottom  of 
the  new  and  sumptuous  receptacle.  Caddis-worms  were 
culled  from  the  streams  that  flowed  Fal-wards,  and 
whelk-like  water-snails  were  comforted  for  their  ex- 
patriation by  having  the  chance  of  eating  bread  crumbs 
if  so  they  wished.  But  the  aquarium  was  still  but  a 
crawling  democracy,  and  needed  some  denizen  of  livelier 
locomotive  power  to  fill  the  post  of  king  in  this  water- 
world.  And  then  one  day,  as  I  have  told  before,  in  a 
book  now  mercifully  forgotten,  we  caught  the  unique  and 
famous  stickleback,  by  accident  you  may  say  (if  you 
believe  in  accidents),  for  certainly  at  the  moment  of  his 
capture  we  had  not  even  seen  him,  though  it  is  true  that 
we  were  dredging  in  the  stream  in  which  the  otter  still 
failed  to  make  his  appearance. 

My  sister  Maggie  and  I  then  were  just  emptying  out 
the  dredging  (butterfly)  net  thinking  we  had  found  no 
great  treasure  on  that  cast,  when  something  stirred  in  the 


t68  OUH  FAJVIILY  AFFAIRS 

residuary  mud,  after  we  had  extracted  no  more  than  a 
caddis  worm  or  two,  and  it  was  he.  With  tremulous  rap- 
ture we  popped  him  in  a  jar  for  transport  to  the  aquarium, 
and  overcome  with  the  greatness  of  the  moment  (like 
Paolo  and  Francesco)  we  fished  no  more  that  day.  For 
perhaps  a  week  he  swam  gorgeously  about  this  new  king- 
dom, never  getting  over  his  delusion  that  if  he  swam 
swiftly  enough  against  the  side  of  it,  he  would  find  him- 
self at  liberty  again,  and  then  the  tragedy  happened. 

It  was  our  custom  every  morning  to  empty  out  the 
contents  of  the  aquarium,  down  the  drain  in  the  stable 
yard,  and  replace  them  with  fresh  water.  During  this 
operation  one  of  us  held  a  piece  of  gauze  over  the  lip 
of  the  aquarium  so  that  none  of  its  inhabitants  should 
be  poured  away.  And  on  one  of  these  occasions,  when 
the  water  was  nearly  drained  out,  and  the  stickleback 
swimming  in  short  indignant  circles  in  the  residue, 
Maggie's  hand  which  was  holding  the  gauze  slipped  sud- 
denly and  in  a  flood  the  remaining  pint  or  two  rushed  out, 
the  stickleback  in  the  midst  of  it.  With  one  flick  of 
his  tail,  he  disappeared  down  the  drain  in  the  stable  yard, 
leaving  us  looking  at  each  other  in  incredulous  dis- 
may. .  .  . 

It  was  certainly  during  this  summer  that  another  idol 
came  to  fill  that  shrine  of  worship  in  my  heart  once  oc- 
cupied by  the  chorister,  and  once  again  music  was  the 
hot  coal  that  fired  my  incense,  and  the  music  in  question 
was  the  mellow  thunder  of  the  organ  in  Kenwyn  Church. 
I  still  believe  that  it  was  very  skilfully  and  sympatheti- 
cally played  by  the  unconscious  object  of  my  adoration. 
I  must  have  fallen  in  love  not  really  with  what  she  was, 
but  with  what  she  did,  for  my  passion  was  all  ablaze 
before  ever  I  had  seen  her  face,  or  had  the  slightest  idea 


ELIZABETH    COOPER;    "beTH."       .tT.    78 


[Page  69 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO         71 

what  she  was  like.  All  I  knew  of  her  was  that  she  pro- 
duced these  enchanting  noises,  since  from  our  pew  I 
could  see  nothing  of  her  except  her  back,  and  a  hand 
which  reached  out  to  shut  a  stop  or  open  another  bleat- 
ling  fount  of  melody.  She  played  the  pedals,  those 
great  wooden  keys,  and  swayed  slightly  from  side  to  side 
as  her  feet  reached  out  for  them.  Once  or  twice,  entering 
or  leaving  the  church  I  had  a  glimpse  of  her  in  less  than 
profile,  and  that  served  my  adoration  well  enough.  Her 
name  was  Mrs.  Carter,  and  I  daresay  she  was  thirty  years 
old  or  thereabouts,  for  she  had  a  son  of  about  my  own 
age  who  used  sometimes  to  turn  over  leaves  for  her,  sit- 
ting by  her  on  the  organ  bench,  and  though  I  don't  think 
I  would  quite  have  exchanged  mothers  with  him,  I  would 
have  given  most  other  things  to  take  his  place  there. 

This  seemed  likely  to  be  a  barren  affair,  for  Sunday 
after  Sunday  passed  and  I  never  saw  more  than  the  sway- 
ing back  of  Mrs.  Carter.  But  by  way  of  killing  one  bird 
and  possibly  two  with  one  stone,  I  got  leave  somehow 
(with  the  gardener's  boy  to  blow  the  bellows  for  an  occa- 
sional quarter  of  an  hour)  to  find  my  way  about  the 
organ.  That  exploration  was  a  good  bird  in  itself,  but 
a  better  lurked  in  my  mind,  for  I  thought  that  Mrs. 
Carter  might  so  easily  come  up  to  Kenwyn  Church  dur- 
ing the  week  to  arrange  her  music  or  what  not,  and  she 
would  find  Me  sitting  in  her  place  and  making  tentative 
experiments  with  the  stops,  and  straining  after  the  nearer 
pedals  with  my  short  legs.  Surely  some  day  I  should 
look  up  and  see  her  standing  by,  and  she  would  say,  "Who 
taught  you  to  play  so  nicely?"  (I  perceive  that  vanity 
was  mingled  with  passion)  and  I,  in  a  happy  tumult  of 
emotion,  would  reply,  "Oh,  Mrs.  Carter  I" 

But  this  trap  for  Mrs.  Carter  never  brought  the  hunter 


72  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

his  quarry,  and  quite  independent  circumstances  led  me 
closer.  It  was  decreed  that  my  sisters  should  have  music 
lessons  and  who  but  Mrs.  Carter  was  engaged  to  be  the 
teacher?  Twice  a  week  she  would  come  to  the  house, 
so  now  no  human  agency,  it  would  appear,  could  prevent 
us  from  meeting.  But  for  some  time  a  human  agency  did 
do  so,  that  human  agency  being  myself,  for  on  observing 
Mrs.  Carter's  approach  up  the  drive,  an  agony  of  shyness 
seized  me,  and  I  sat  distracted  in  the  day  nursery  until 
she  had  gone  upstairs,  and  the  noise  of  the  piano  from 
the  schoolroom  showed  that  she  was  engaged.  Once, 
summoning  up  all  my  courage,  I  went  in  while  the  lesson 
was  in  progress,  but  she  did  not  take  her  eyes  off  the  copy 
of  Schubert's  Impromptu  in  A  flat,  which  Maggie  was 
fumbling  at,  and  I  went  out  and  listened  in  the  garden 
for  the  cessation  of  the  piano,  on  which,  I  determined,  I 
would  walk  quite  calmly  towards  the  front  door  and  thus 
meet  Mrs.  Carter  there  or  thereabouts.  But,  alas  for 
this  faint-hearted  lover,  as  soon  as  the  piano  ceased  I 
walked  in  precisely  the  other  direction,  and  it  was  not 
likely  that  Mrs.  Carter  instead  of  going  down  the  drive 
would  force  her  way  through  the  laurel  shrubbery  in 
order  to  find  me. 

I  blush  to  record  the  next  step  of  my  wooing.  An 
invincible  shyness  (though  I  was  not  otherwise  shy)  for- 
bade my  walking  down  the  drive  as  Mrs.  Carter  was  com- 
ing up,  or  taking  any  direct  initiative,  so  I  laid  a  lure 
for  her.  Observing  her  approach  to  the  house,  I  regret 
to  say  that  it  was  my  custom  to  lean  out  of  the  schoolroom 
window,  singing  loudly.  This  would  certainly  attract 
her  attention  (indeed  I  think  that  once  it  did,  and  I 
rushed,  panic-stricken,  away)  and  she  would  say  to  one 
of  my  sisters,  "Was  that  your  brother  who  was  singing? 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO         73 

What  a  charming  voice  I"  And  one  of  my  sisters  would 
say,  "Oh  yes,  he  is  very  fond  of  music."  Then  surely, 
surely  Mrs.  Carter  would  say,  "I  don't  think  we  have 
met,"  or  perhaps  even,  "I  should  like  to  see  him,"  and 
then  my  sister  would  come  and  find  me  (for  after  these 
bursts  of  melody  out  of  the  window  I  always  fled  like  a 
frightened  dove  to  the  nursery)  and  say  that  Mrs.  Carter 
would  like  to  see  me.  I  had  looked  on  her  face  by  now, 
and  I  pictured  to  myself  how  her  kind  mouth  would  smile 
as  she  shook  hands,  and  she  would  say,  "We  must  be 
friends,  mustn't  we,  for  we  are  both  so  fond  of  music." 
This  bleating  piece  of  Platonism  came  to  an  end  some- 
how, and  I  grew  to  be  able  to  contemplate  Mrs.  Carter's 
back  swaying  to  her  pedal-playing  without  emotion.  But 
I  think  that  this  warm  soft  Cornish  climate  must  have 
brought  out  a  sort  of  measles  of  sentimentality  in  me, 
for  without  pause  I  transferred  my  sloppy  heart  to  the 
curate  at  Kenwyn,  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Reeve,  who  subse- 
quently was  appointed  Rector  of  Lambeth  by  my  father, 
and  was  an  intimate  friend  of  all  of  us.  He  was  a  man 
who  was  habitually  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of 
ecstasy,  an  adorer  of  children,  and  next  door  to  a  fanatic 
in  matters  of  religion,  beloved  and  blissful,  living  in  a 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land.  To  the  outward 
view  he  presented  a  long  lean  figure,  walking  at  a  tre- 
mendous pace,  and  perspiring  profusely,  with  his  umbrella 
tucked  under  his  arm,  and  his  hands  clasped  in  perpetual 
admiration  of  this,  inimitable  world,  and  the  saints  that 
he  constantly  discovered  in  it  under  the  most  deceptive 
of  disguises.  There  were  no  "miserable  sinners"  in  his 
sight;  the  most  impenitent  were  but  rather  wilful  chil- 
dren of  the  Father.  He  had  a  mane  of  yellow  hair  which 
he  tossed  back  as  he  laughed  peals  of  uproarious  appreci- 


74  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ation  of  any  joke  at  all.    But  whereas  with  the  chorister 

and  Mrs.  Carter  there  certainly  was  some  personal,  physi- 
cal attraction  (though  no  doubt  the  main  source  of  the 
inspiration  was  music),  with  Mr.  Reeve  there  was  no 
personal  attraction  of  any  kind,  and  the  experience  was 
of  the  stained-glass  window  order,  in  which  I  was  cast  for 
the  stained-glass  window,  and  Mr.  Reeve  for  the  wor- 
shipper. At  the  bottom  of  it  all  perhaps  there  was  some 
grain  of  genuine  religious  sentiment,  but  this  was  so 
largely  diluted  by  mawkishness  and  vanity,  that  examina- 
tion fails  to  find  more  than  that  minute  presence  described 
in  the  analysis  of  medicinal  waters  as  ''some  traces."  He 
used  to  breakfast  with  us  after  a  short  service  in  Kenwyn 
Church  at  a  quarter  to  eight  every  morning,  to  which  we 
children  were  encouraged  though  not  obliged  to  go,  and 
he  was  a  kind  of  unofficial  chaplain  to  my  father,  writing 
his  letters  for  him  half  the  morning  with  a  puckered  brow, 
but  ready  to  burst  into  peals  of  laughter  on  the  smallest 
opportunity  for  mirth.  Every  Sunday  also,  he  came  to 
tea  before  service,  and  afterwards  to  supper,  and  every 
Sunday  evening  after  tea  I  went  with  him  into  a  spare 
bedroom  where,  with  his  arm  round  my  neck,  he  read  me 
the  sermon  he  was  about  to  preach.  I  suppose  my  com- 
ments were  very  edifying  and  satisfactory,  for  he  cer- 
tainly told  my  mother  that  "that  boy  was  not  far  from 
the  kingdom  of  God."  She  must  very  wisely  have  begged 
him  not  to  tell  me  that,  for  I  had  no  idea  of  it  at  the 
time.  Once,  indeed,  he  sadly  failed  me,  for  meeting  me 
as  I  was  being  taken  to  the  dentist  by  Beth,  there  to  have 
two  teeth  out  under  gas,  he  said  that  to  have  gas  was 
the  same  as  getting  drunk,  and  I  went  on  my  weary  way 
feeling  not  only  terrified  but  wicked  as  well.  It  is  true, 
though  scarcely  <;redible,  that  the  gas  was  administered  by 


THE  XEW  HOME  AT  TRURO         75 

Mrs.  Tuck  the  dentist's  wife,  and  that  there  was  no  an- 
aesthetist or  doctor  present.  But  I  daresay  Mrs.  Tuck  per- 
formed her  office  ver}-  well,  for  I  had  a  delightful  dream 
about  being  in  a  balloon  in  the  middle  of  a  rainbow. 

That  autumn  lessons  began  again,  and  until  I  went 
to  a  private  school  next  Easter  I  suffered  under  the  awful 
rule  of  a  German  governess,  not  our  kind  Miss  Braun  of 
Lincoln,  but  a  dark-eyed  and  formidable  woman  who,  I 
was  firmly  convinced,  must  truly  have  been  the  terrible 
Madame  de  la  Rougierre  in  the  tale  of  Uncle  Silas  which 
I  was  reading  then  in  small  instalments,  being  too 
frightened  to  read  much  at  a  time.  She  cannot  have  been 
with  us  long,  for  before  I  went  to  school  the  beloved  Miss 
Bramston  came  back,  not  originally  as  governess  but  for 
another  and  a  tragic  reason. 

The  Christmas  holidays  of  1877  were  the  last  when 
the  whole  of  the  family  of  six,  with  my  father  and  mother 
and  Beth,  who  was  absolutely  of  the  family  also,  were 
together.  My  eldest  brother  Martin  was  then  seventeen, 
and  so  great  a  gulf  is  iixed  between  that  age  and  ten, 
that  never,  till  the  day  I  saw  him  last,  did  I  form  any 
clear  idea  of  him.  Here,  then,  I  must  abandon  the  stand- 
point I  have  hitherto  maintained,  namely,  that  of  speak- 
ing of  the  events  of  these  earlv  vears  through  mv  own 
personal  recollection  of  what  impression  they  made  on 
me  as  the  jolly  days  slipped  by,  and  mingle  recollection 
with  subsequent  knowledge. 

At  the  age  of  fourteen  Martin  had  won  the  first  open 
scholarship  at  Winchester,  and  had  now  mentally  de- 
veloped into  an  extraordinar}'  maturit)'  and  wisdom.  He 
took  an  amazing  interest  in  the  political  affairs  of  the 
day,  in  classics  he  was  considered  to  be  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  scholar  that  Winchester  ever  had,  and  as  wit- 


76  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ness  to  his  innate  love  of  learning  there  was  a  library 
which  he  had  himself  acquired,  and  which  must  have 
been  unique  for  a  boy  of  his  age.  Already  at  Lincoln 
he  had  "spotted"  an  Albert  Diirer  woodcut  pasted  on  to 
the  fly-leaf  of  some  trumpery  book  at  a  penny  bookstall, 
and  had  breathlessly  conveyed  the  treasure  home,  and 
he  and  my  father  used  to  exchange  original  Latin  versions 
of  hymns.  But  this  precocity  of  scholarship  did  not  in 
the  least  check  his  boyishness,  which  verged  on  the  fan- 
tastic, for  once  he  appeared  in  school  with  four  little 
Japanese  dolls  attached  to  the  four  strings  of  his  shoe- 
laces, and  gravely  proceeded  with  his  construing.  There 
are  notebooks  full  of  his  exquisite  ridiculous  drawings 
with  appropriate  text  in  his  minute  handwriting :  there  are 
poems  as  ridiculous,  and  behind  it  all  was  this  serious 
limpid  spirit.  .  .  . 

He  went  back  that  January  to  Winchester,  and  Arthur 
to  Eton,  and  one  day,  early  in  February  he  had  a  sud- 
den attack  of  giddiness,  and  then  followed  an  attack  of 
meningitis.  My  father  and  mother  were  sent  for;  he 
was  then  unconscious.  Arthur  went  there  from  Eton, 
but  my  mother  decided  that  we  younger  children  should 
not  go  and  instead  Miss  Bramston  came  down  to  us  in 
Cornwall.  The  rest  I  will  tell  by  means  of  two  letters 
which  my  mother  wrote  to  Beth.  I  found  them,  after 
my  mother's  death,  forty  years  after,  in  a  little  packet  of 
papers  which  had  belonged  to  Beth,  and  consisted  of  let- 
ters from  all  of  us  which  she  had  always  kept. 

"Winchester, 

Friday  (Feb.  8,  1878). 
Dearest  Beth, 

I  must  write  you  a  few  lines  to-day.     Our  dear  one  is  no 

better  at  all.    Nothing  can  be  done  for  him  but  to  watch  him  and 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO         77 

to  give  nourishment  and  to  pray  and  trust  in  God.  Everything 
possible  is  done  for  him ;  he  has  two  nurses,  day  and  night.  We 
go  in  and  out  of  his  room  from  time  to  time.  He  lies  quite  peace- 
fully, mostly  sleeping,  and  evidently  quite  unconscious  of  any 
pain.  There  is  no  sign  of  pain  about  his  face.  He  knows  us  now 
and  then,  we  think,  but  he  does  not  speak.  He  takes  a  little  nour- 
ishment from  time  to  time,  but  with  difficulty.  Sir  William  Jen- 
ner  has  been  sent  for,  though  there  does  not  seem  anything  he  can 
do. 

Dearest  Beth,  it  is  such  a  comfort  to  think  that  you  are  with 
those  dear  ones  at  home.  I  don't  know  what  they  would  do  with- 
out you,  or  how  we  could  bear  to  think  of  leaving  them  unless 
they  had  you.  We  are  both  quite  sure  that  it  is  better  they  should 
not  come.  They  could  not  be  with  him,  and  it  is  no  use  their 
hearing  details.  We  ought  to  and  must  keep  before  their  young 
minds  just  the  Love  of  God,  whether  He  shews  it  in  giving  our 
darling  back  to  our  prayers,  or  in  taking  to  Himself  so  beautiful 
and  holy  a  life. 

But  we  must  not,  and  do  not  give  up  hope.  Though  as  far  as 
man  knows  or  sees  there  is  nothing  to  be  done,  and  the  doctors 
dare  not  give  us  hope  of  recovery,  yet  just  where  man  is  most 
powerless,  God  does  work,  often,  and  we  continue  to  pray  to  Him 
in  hope  for  our  darling's  restoration.  While  there  is  life,  we  will 
not  despair. 

Dearest  Beth,  God  keep  you  all :  the  thought  of  you  is  such  a 
comfort  to  us.  Pray  yourself  continually, — encourage  them  all 
to  pray.  One  of  the  Psalms  to-day  begins,  T  waited  patiently  for 
the  Lord,  and  He  inclined  unto  me,  and  heard  my  calling.' 

All  our  heart's  love  is  with  you  all  always. 

Your  most  loving 

Mary  Benson." 

This  is  the  second  letter : 

"Dearest  Friend  and  Mother  Beth, 

Be  comforted  for  Martin.  He  is  in  perfect  peace,  in  won- 
derful joy,  far  happier  than  we  could  ever  have  made  him.  And 
what  did  we  desire  in  our  hearts  but  to  make  him  happy  ?    And 


78  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

now  he  will  help  us  out  of  his  perfect  happiness.  He  died  with- 
out a  struggle — his  pure  and  gentle  spirit  passed  straight  to  Grod 
his  Father,  and  now  he  is  ours  and  with  us  more  than  ever.  Ours 
now,  in  a  way  that  nothing  can  take  away. 

Dearest  Beth,  we  are  all  going  to  be  more  loving  than  ever, 
living  in  love  we  shall  live  in  God,  and  we  shall  live  close  to  our 
dear  one. 

One  is  so  sure  now,  that  sin  is  the  only  separation,  and  that 
sting  is  taken  out  of  death  by  Jesus  Christ,  My  heart  aches  for 
the  dear  ones  at  home,  but  I  know  you  are  a  mother  to  them,  and 
will  support  and  comfort  their  hearts,  and  keep  before  them  that 
God  is  love,  and  that  He  is  loving  us  in  this  thing  also.  And  I 
want  them  to  think  of  Martin,  our  darling,  in  perfect  peace  for 
ever,  free  from  fear,  free  from  pain,  from  anxiety  for  evermore, 
and  to  think  how  he  will  rejoice  to  see  us  walking  more  and  more 
in  Love  for  his  dear  sake. 

We  cannot  grudge  him  his  happiness. 

Dearest  Beth,  our  boy  is  with  God:  he  knows  everything  now, 
and  will  help  us.    The  peace  of  God  Almighty  be  with  you. 
Your  own  child,  your  fellow-mother, 

M.  B." 

There  is  nothing  that  could  tell  so  simply  and  com- 
pletely, not  only  what  my  mother  was,  but  what  Beth 
was,  as  this  letter  which  my  mother  wrote  on  the  morn- 
ing after  the  death  of  her  eldest  son.  It  gives  the  soul 
of  them  both,  of  my  mother  that  she  could  write  it,  and 
of  Beth  the  "fellow-mother,"  to  whom  it  was  written. 

When  I  was  old  enough  to  understand  my  mother  told 
me  about  the  day  on  which  that  second  letter  was  written. 
She  had,  so  she  said  to  me,  a  couple  of  hours  of  the  most 
wonderful  happiness  she  had  ever  experienced  on  that 
day,  when  she  realized  that  though  God  had  taken,  yet 
she  could  give.  Her  inmost  being  knew  that,  and  when 
she  came  back  to  us  a  few  days  later,  there  was  no  shadow 
on  her,  for  all  that  she  said  to  Beth  was  the  simple  un- 


THE  NEW  HOME  AT  TRURO         79 

touched  copy  of  the  writing  on  her  heart.  But  even  now 
I  can  remember  my  father's  face,  as  he  stepped  from  the 
carriage  into  the  lamplight,  for  it  was  the  face  of  a  most 
loving  man  stricken  with  the  death  of  the  boy  he  loved 
best,  who  had  been  nearest  his  heart,  and  was  knit  into 
his  very  soul.  Often  has  my  mother  told  me  that  though 
he  accepted  Martin's  death  as  God's  will,  he  could  not, 
out  of  the  very  strength  of  his  human  love,  adapt  himself 
to  it.  His  faith  was  unshaken,  but  the  deep  waters  had 
gone  over  him,  and  years  afterwards,  when  he  saw  the 
martins  skimming  about  the  eaves  of  the  house  at  Adding- 
ton,  he  wrote  about  them  and  his  own  Martin  a  little 
poem  infinitely  touching;  and  never,  so  I  believe,  did 
some  part  of  him  cease  to  wonder  why  his  Martin  had 
been  taken  from  him. 


CHAPTER  V 

PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS 

AFTER  Easter,  1878,  I  was  sent  to  a  private  school 
presided  over  by  Mr.  Ottiwell  Waterfield,  at 
Temple  Grove,  East  Sheen,  and  remained  there  three 
years.  The  house  and  grounds  vanished  entirely  some- 
where about  1908,  under  the  trail  of  the  suburban  builder, 
and  now  hideous  rows  of  small  residences  occupy  their 
spaciousness.  For  the  purposes  of  a  school  numbering 
some  hundred  and  thirty  boys,  the  original  George  I  and 
Queen  Anne  house  had  been  largely  supplemented  with 
dormitories  and  schoolrooms,  and  a  modem  wing  as 
large  as  the  house  ran  at  right  angles  by  the  edge  of 
the  cricket  field.  But  the  part  where  Mr.  Waterfield  and 
his  family  lived  had  not  been  touched:  there  was  a  fine 
library,  drawing-room,  and  his  study  (how  awful  was 
that  place  I)  en  suite,  a  paved  hall,  with  a  full-sized  bil- 
liard table  and  a  piano  where  a  frail  widow  lady  called 
Mrs.  Russell  gave  music-lessons,  and  the  French  master, 
whose  name  really  was  M.  Voltaire,  conducted  a  danc- 
ing-class as  well  as  teaching  French  and  being,  I  think, 
slightly  immoral.  A  passage  out  of  the  hall  gave  on  to 
the  private  garden  of  Mr.  Waterfield,  where  there  were 
fine  cedar  trees,  and  a  broad  oak-staircase  led  up  from  it 
to  the  bedrooms  of  the  family. 

Already,  darkly  in  the  glass  of  fiction  and  under  the 
title  of  David  Blaize,  I  have  hinted  at  some  of  the  habits 

80 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    81 

of  the  young  gentlemen  who  led  a  life,  alternately  up- 
roarious and  terror-stricken,  in  the  other  part  of  the  house, 
but  now  more  personal  details  can  be  indulged  in.  By 
far  the  most  salient  feature  in  the  school,  even  as  the 
sun  is  the  most  salient  feature  in  the  day,  making  it 
precisely  what  it  is,  was  Mr.  Waterfield  himself.  He 
seems  now  to  me  to  have  been  nine  feet  high,  and  he 
certainly  walked  with  a  curious  rocking  motion,  which 
was  convenient,  because  if  you  were  where  you  should 
not  be,  you  could  detect  his  coming  long  before  he  could 
detect  anybody.  He  had  a  square  grey  beard  which  smelt 
of  cigars,  a  fact  known  from  his  practice,  when  he  had 
frightened  the  life  out  of  you  by  terrible  harangues,  of 
saying,  "Well,  that's  all  over,  my  boy,"  and  kissing  you. 
I  believe  him  to  have  been  about  the  best  private  school- 
master who  ever  lived,  for  he  ruled  by  love  and  fear  com- 
bined in  a  manner  that  while  it  inspired  small  boys  with 
hellish  terror,  yet  rewarded  them  with  the  sweet  fruits 
of  hero-worship.  He  exacted  blind  obedience,  under 
peril  of  really  infamous  torture  with  a  thick  ruler  with 
which  he  savagely  caned  offending  hands,  but  he  man- 
aged at  the  same  time  to  make  us  appreciate  his  approba- 
tion. The  ruler  was  kept  in  a  convenient  drawer  of  the 
knee-hole  table  in  his  study,  and  was  a  perfectly  brutal 
instrument,  but  the  approach  of  the  ruler,  like  a  depres- 
sion over  the  Atlantic,  was  always  heralded  by  storm- 
cones.  The  first  of  these  was  the  taking  of  the  keys 
from  his  trousers-pocket,  and  then  you  had  time  to  pull 
yourself  together  to  retract  an  equivocation,  to  confess 
a  fault,  or  try  to  remember  something  you  had  been  re- 
peatedly told.  The  second  storm-cone  was  the  insertion 
of  the  key  into  the  drawer  where  the  ruler  was  kept.  You 
had  to  be  of  very  strong  nerve  when  that  second  storm- 


82  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

cone  was  hoisted,  and  divert  your  mind  from  the  possible 
future  to  the  supine  which  you  could  not  recollect,  for 
when  the  key  was  once  inserted  there  might  any  moment 
be  a  sudden  startling  explosion  of  wrath,  and  out  flew 
the  ruler.  Then  came  a  short  agonizing  scene,  and  the 
blubbering  victim  after  six  smart  blows  had  the  handle 
of  the  door  turned  for  him  by  somebody  else,  because 
his  hands  were  useless  through  pain.  The  ruler  was 
quite  rare,  and  probably  well  deserved;  anyhow  it  was 
the  counter-balance  to  the  hero-worship  bom  of  Mr. 
Waterfield's  approval.  For  more  heinous  offences  there 
was  birching,  but  that  had  certain  compensations,  for 
afterwards  you  took  down  your  breeches  and  showed  the 
injured  parts  to  admiring  companions.  But  there  was 
nothing  to  show,  as  Mrs.  Pullet  said  about  the  boluses, 
when  you  were  caned.  Besides  you  could  play  cricket 
quite  easily,  shortly  after  a  whipping,  but  no  human  hand 
could  hold  a  bat  shortly  after  the  application  of  the  ruler. 

The  top  form  (called  the  first  form,  not  the  sixth  form) 
had  certain  specified  lessons  every  week  taken  by  Water- 
field,  and  he  did  not  teach  regularly  in  other  forms.  But 
he  was  liable  to  make  meteoric  appearances  soon  after 
the  beginning  of  a  lesson  in  the  big  schoolroom  where  the 
next  three  forms  were  at  work,  and  take  any  lesson  him- 
self. A  hush  fell  as  he  strode  in,  and  we  all  cowered  like 
partridges  below  a  kite,  while  he  glared  round,  selecting 
the  covey  on  to  which  he  pounced.  This  was  a  subtle 
plan,  for  you  could  never  be  sure  that  it  would  not  be  he 
who  would  hear  any  particular  lesson,  and  the  chance  of 
that  made  it  most  unwise  to  neglect  any  preparation  alto- 
gether. 

The  school  got  its  fair  share  of  public-school  scholar- 
ships, so  I  suppose  the  teaching  of  the  other  masters  was 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    83 

sound,  but  I  cannot  believe  that  a  stranger  set  of  in- 
structors were  ever  got  together.  Rawlings,  who  taught 
the  first  form,  used  habitually  to  read  the  Sporting  Times 
in  school  with  his  feet  up  on  the  desk  until  the  time 
came  for  him  to  hear  us  construe.  Daubeny,  the  master 
of  the  second  form,  had  no  thought  but  for  the  encourage- 
ment of  a  small  moustache;  Davy  of  the  third  form 
used  mostly  to  be  asleep;  Geoghehan  of  the  fourth  form 
(called  "Geege")  had  lost  his  right  arm,  and  used  always 
to  have  some  favourite  in  his  class,  who  sat  on  his  knee 
in  school  time  and  was  an  important  personage,  for  he 
could,  if  you  were  friends  with  him,  always  persuade 
Geege  not  to  report  misconduct  to  Waterfield.  One  such 
boy,  now  a  steady  hereditary  legislator,  I  well  remember : 
he  pulled  Geege's  beard,  and  altered  the  marks  in  his 
register,  and  ruled  him  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Geege  was 
otherwise  an  effective  disciplinarian,  and  had  an  unpleas- 
ant habit,  if  he  thought  you  were  not  attending,  of  spear- 
ing the  back  of  your  hand  with  the  nib  of  his  pen,  dipped 
in  purple  ink.  Then  there  was  a  handwriting  specialist 
called  Prior  who  gave  out  stationery  on  Saturdays.  His 
appearance  was  always  hailed  by  a  sort  of  Gregorian 
chant  to  which  the  words  were,  "All  boys  wanting  ink, 
go  to  Mr.  Prior."  Then  came  Mr.  Voltaire,  the  gay 
young  Frenchman,  and  these  with  one  or  two  more  of 
whom  I  cherish  no  recollection  all  lived  together  at  a 
house  in  East  Sheen  called  Clarence  House,  and  were, 
I  think,  a  shade  more  frightened  of  Waterfield  than  we. 
The  ways  of  boys  are  past  finding  out,  and  what  could 
have  induced  us  to  believe  that  the  food  supplied  was 
disgusting  to  the  verge  of  being  poisonous  I  have  no  idea. 
But  tradition,  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking,  or- 
dained that  this  was  so,  and  how  often  when  I  was  long- 


84  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ing  to  eat  a  plateful  of  pudding  have  I  shovelled  it  into 
an  envelope  to  bury  in  the  playground,  since  the  currants 
in  it  were  held  to  be  squashed  flies  and  the  suet  to  be 
made  with  scourings  from  dirty  plates.  Then  somebody 
once  saw  potatoes,  no  doubt  intended  for  school  consump- 
tion, lying  on  the  floor  in  a  shed  in  the  garden,  which 
was  considered  a  terrible  way  in  which  to  keep  potatoes. 
I  remembering  telling  my  father  this,  and  with  the  utmost 
gravity  he  answered  that  every  potato  ought  to  be 
wrapped  up  singly  in  silver  paper.  He  also  asked  if  it  was 
true  that  Mr.  Waterfield  had  been  seen,  with  his  trousers 
turned  up  diluting  the  beer  for  dinner  out  of  a  garden 
watering-can.  Most  poisonous  of  all  were  supposed  to 
be  the  sausages  which  we  had  for  breakfast  now  and 
then :  it  was  a  point  of  honour  not  to  eat  a  single  mouthful 
of  this  garbage.  Then  suddenly  for  no  reason  the  fashion 
changed,  and  the  food  was  supposed  to  be,  and  indeed 
it  probably  was,  excellent.  We  gobbled  up  our  sausages, 
asked  for  more  and  got  it,  and  ate  the  potatoes  that  had 
once  lain  on  the  dirty  ground,  and  had  even  degraded 
themselves  by  growing  in  it.  .  .  . 

I  plunged  headlong  into  this  riot  of  school  life  and  for 
the  first  year  enjoyed  it  enormously.  I  had  been  placed 
too  low  in  the  school  and  without  the  slightest  effort  I 
found  myself  term  after  term  at  the  top  of  the  class,  and 
loaded  with  prizes,  for  no  merit  of  my  own  but  for  the 
fact  that  I  had  the  kind  of  superficial  memory  that  re- 
tained what  it  had  scarcely  attended  to  at  all.  In  con- 
sequence for  a  whole  year  I  had  no  fear  of  Waterfield  as 
regards  lessons,  and  devoted  myself  to  games,  stag-beetles, 
and  friendship,  and  I  find  it  hard  to  decide  whether  the 
rapture  of  making  twenty  at  cricket  against  overhand 
bowling  (not  lobs  from  sisters)  was  greater  or  less  than 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    85 

finding  a  stag-beetle  on  the  palings,  or  in  the  early  dawn 
of  summer  mornings  going  on  tiptoe  into  the  next  dormi- 
tory, and,  after  waking  up  my  special  friend,  sitting  on 
his  bed,  propped  up  with  pillows  and  talking  in  whispers 
till  there  came  the  sound  of  the  dressing-bell,  which  por- 
tended the  entrance  of  the  matron.  Then  it  was  neces- 
sary to  steal  round  the  corner  of  his  cubicle,  and  slide 
back  into  my  own  bed,  there  apparently  to  fall  into  a 
refreshing  slumber,  for  to  be  caught  out  of  bed  before 
it  was  time  to  dress  meant  to  be  reported  to  Waterfield, 
who  took  a  serious,  and  to  me  then  an  unintelligible  view 
of  such  an  offence.  But  an  hour's  whispered  conversation 
with  a  friend  was  worth  that  risk,  indeed  probably  the 
risk  added  a  certain  savour  to  it,  and  perhaps  our  present 
Minister  at  the  Vatican  has  recollections  similar  to  mine. 
Or  else  it  would  be  I  who  was  awakened  by  the  soft-step- 
ping night-shirted  figure,  and  moved  aside  in  bed  to  give 
room  for  him  to  sit  there,  and  there  would  be  plans  to 
be  made,  and  then  combining  friendship  with  stag-beetles 
into  one  incomparable  compound  we  would  take  the  stag- 
beetles  (for  there  were  two  of  them,  male  and  female 
called  "The  Monarch  of  the  Glen"  and  "Queen")  out 
of  my  washing  basin,  where  they  passed  the  night  in 
optimistic  attempts  to  climb  its  slippery  sides,  and  refresh 
them  with  a  breakfast  of  elm  leaves  and  perhaps  the  half 
of  a  strawberry.  They  had  to  be  put  back  into  two  match- 
boxes which  were  their  travelling  carriages  before  Jane 
the  matron  came  round,  for  she  had  said  that  if  ever  she 
found  stag-beetles  in  basins  again  she  would  throw  them 
out  of  the  window. 

An  "Exeat"  now  and  then  diversified  the  course  of  the 
term,  and  these  I  spent  with  my  Aunt  Eleanor  who  had 
married  Mr.  Thomas  Hare,  famous  for  his  book  on  the 


86  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Representation  of  Minorities.  He  was  a  great  friend  of 
John  Stuart  Mill,  whom  Aunt  Eleanor,  for  some  reason 
of  her  own,  always  called  "Mr.  Mills."  They  lived  in  a 
house  near  Surbiton  which  had  a  tower  in  it,  on  the  top 
floor  of  which  was  Uncle  Hare's  laboratory,  chemistry 
being  a  hobby  of  his,  and  he  made  oxygen  in  glass  retorts, 
and  put  snippets  of  potassium  to  scurry,  flaring  and  self- 
lit,  on  the  surface  of  a  basin  of  water.  .  .  .  On  the  5th 
of  November  every  year  I  was  asked  to  a  children's  party, 
given  by  Princess  Mary,  Duchess  of  Teck,  at  the  White 
Lodge,  Richmond  Park,  and  there  was  an  immense  tea 
followed  by  fireworks  in  the  garden.  There  we  were 
given  squibs  and  told  to  be  sure  to  throw  them  away  as 
soon  as  they  burned  low,  before  the  explosion  came  at 
the  end,  and  on  one  of  these  occasions  the  Duke  of  Teck 
wanting  a  light  for  his  cigar  told  me  to  give  him  my  squib, 
for  he  had  no  matches.  I  told  him  that  it  was  already 
burning  low,  but  he  said  "Wass?"  rather  alarmingly,  and 
so  I  handed  it  to  him.  He  had  just  applied  the  burning 
end  of  it  to  his  cigar  when  the  explosion  came,  and  his 
face  and  hair  were  covered  with  sparks,  and  he  danced 
about,  and  said  sonorous  things  in  German,  and  I  gathered 
that  he  was  vexed.  .  .  . 

The  minds  of  children  as  they  grow  have  those  diseases 
incident  to  childhood  much  as  their  bodies  have.  I  had 
had  my  measles  of  sentimentality,  and  having  got  over 
that  I  developed  during  this  year  a  kind  of  whooping- 
cough  of  lying.  I  used  to  invent  and  repeat  extraordinary 
experiences,  which  had  their  root  in  fact,  but  were  em- 
bellished by  my  imagination  to  scenes  of  unparalleled 
magnificence.  For  instance,  the  family  spent  that  sum- 
mer holidays  at  Etretat,  crossing  from  Southampton  to 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS     87 

Havre,  and  I  came  back  with  Arthur  who  was  going  to 
Eton,  a  day  late  for  the  assembling  of  Temple  Grove. 
The  crossing  was  an  extremely  rough  one;  all  night  the 
water  broke  over  the  decks  heavy  and  solid,  and  certainly 
some  unfortunate  passenger  came  into  the  cabin  drenched 
through.  All  next  day  as  I  travelled  to  Temple  Grove 
my  imagination  worked  on  these  promising  materials,  and 
I  told  my  admiring  schoolfellows  that  we  had  barely  es- 
caped shipwreck.  The  waves,  which  certainly  did  deluge 
the  decks,  I  represented  as  having  poured  in  torrents  down 
the  funnels,  extinguishing  the  furnaces,  so  that  we  had 
to  stop  till  the  fires  were  relit,  while  out  of  the  passenger 
who  came  down  drenched  into  the  cabin  I  constructed  a 
Frenchman  who  was  supposed  to  have  said  to  me  in 
broken  English,  "Ze  water  is  not  coming  over  in  bucket- 
fuls  it  is  coming  over  in  shipfuls."  So  vividly  did  I 
imagine  this,  that  before  long  I  really  half  believed  it. 
Again  the  next  winter  holidays  were  marked  by  a  heavy 
snowfall  in  Cornwall  succeeded  by  a  partial  thaw  and  a 
hard  frost.  In  consequence  the  horses  had  to  be  roughed, 
and  it  is  certainly  a  fact  that  the  carriage  which  was 
bringing  my  father  home  one  evening  slewed  so  violently 
that,  according  to  his  quite  authentic  description,  he 
looked  out  of  the  window,  and  saw  instead  of  the  hedge- 
rows the  steep  glazed  road  in  front  of  him.  I  seized 
hungrily  on  that  incident,  and  on  returning  to  school 
said  that  we  had  enjoyed  delightful  sledging  in  the  holi- 
days, over  roads  and  lakes,  adding  the  further  embellish- 
ment that  I  personally  drove  the  horses.  .  .  .  There  were 
more  of  these  fictions  which  I  cannot  now  remember,  all 
of  which  had  some  exiguous  foundation  of  fact,  and  great 
was  my  horror  when  an  implacable  enemy  handed  me  one 


88  OUR  FAMILY  ArFAIRS 

morning  a  scrap  of  paper,  in  the  manner  of  an  ultimatum 
headed : 

"Benson's  Lies" 

and  there  below,  neatly  summarized  were  all  these  stories 
which  I  thought  had  been  listened  to  with  such  respectful 
envy.  The  implacable  enemy  added  darkly  that  "they" 
(whoever  "they"  might  be)  were  considering  what  they 
were  going  to  do  about  it  all.  I  suppose  consternation 
was  graven  on  me,  for  he  stonily  added,  "Yes,  you  may 
well  turn  pale,"  and  I  pictured  (my  imagination  again 
rioting  off)  this  damning  text  being  handed  to  Waterfield, 
who  would  send  it  to  my  father.  What  was  the  public 
upshot,  I  cannot  remember,  but  by  aid  of  that  terrifying 
medicine  I  made  a  marvellously  brisk  recovery  from  that 
particular  disease. 

Some  time  during  that  first  year  at  school,  there  oc- 
curred a  scene  which  I  still  look  back  on  as  among  the 
most  awful  I  have  ever  witnessed.  Two  boys,  one  high 
in  the  school,  a  merry  handsome  creature,  the  other  quite 
a  small  boy,  suddenly  disappeared.  They  were  in  their 
places  at  breakfast,  but  during  breakfast  were  sent  for 
by  Waterfield  and  at  school  that  morning  their  places 
were  empty.  They  did  not  appear  at  dinner,  they  did 
not  appear  at  tea,  and  that  night  in  the  next  dormitory 
their  beds  were  vacant.  Jane  said  they  were  not  ill,  and 
forbade  any  further  questions,  and  curious  whisperings 
went  about,  of  which  I  could  not  grasp  the  import.  Next 
morning  there  came  a  sudden  order  that  all  the  school 
should  be  assembled,  and  we  crowded  into  the  big  school- 
room. Presently  Waterfield  entered  with  his  cap  and 
gown  on,  followed  by  the  two  missing  boys.     He  took 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    89 

his  place  at  his  desk,  and  motioned  them  to  stand  out 
in  the  middle  of  the  room.    There  was  a  long  silence. 

Then  Waterfield  began  to  speak  in  a  low  voice  that 
grew  gradually  louder.  He  told  us  all  to  look  at  them, 
which  we  did.  He  then  told  us  that  they  had  brought 
utter  ruin  and  disgrace  on  themselves,  that  no  public 
school  would  receive  them,  and  that  they  had  broken 
their  parents'  hearts.  They  were  not  going  to  stop  an 
hour  longer  amongst  us,  for  their  presence  was  filthy  and 
contaminating.  They  were  publicly  expelled  and  would 
now  go  back  to  the  homes  on  which  they  had  brought 
disgrace. 

He  then  told  us  all  to  go  out,  and  was  left  with  those 
two,  and  I  wondered,  limp  with  terror,  whether  he  was 
going  to  kill  them,  and  what  on  earth  it  was  that  they 
had  done.  And  if  I  was  limp  then,  you  may  judge  what 
was  my  condition,  when  presently  the  school  sergeant  who 
brought  summonses  from  Waterfield  told  me  that  he 
wished  to  see  me.  .  .  .  Indeed  that  imaginative  habit 
which  had  made  up  so  many  glorious  adventures  for  my- 
self on  slender  grounds  was  a  poor  friend  at  that  moment, 
for  as  I  went  to  the  study,  it  vividly  suggested  to  me  that 
I  too,  for  some  unintelligible  reason,  would  be  despatched 
to  Cornwall,  a  ruined  and  disgraced  boy. 

I  tapped  at  the  door,  tapped  again  without  receiving 
any  answer  and  entered.  Waterfield  was  sitting  at  his 
table  and  he  was  crying.  He  indicated  to  me  that  I  was 
to  sit  down,  which  I  did.  Then  he  blew  his  nose  with  an 
awful  explosion  of  sound,  and  came  with  his  rocking  walk 
across  to  the  chimney-piece. 

"I  want  to  ask  you  a  question,"  he  said.  "Do  you 
understand  why  those  two  boys  were  sent  away?" 

"No,  sir,"  said  I. 


90  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

His  voice  choked  for  a  moment. 

"I  am  very  glad  to  hear  it,"  he  said.  "I  thank  God  for 
that.     You  may  go." 

Here  was  a  mysterious  affair!  I  went  out  wondering 
about  a  million  things,  why  Waterfield  was  crying,  why 
he  had  sent  for  me,  and  above  all  why  those  two  boys 
were  publicly  disgraced.  I  began  to  grub  in  my  memory 
for  any  clue,  and  recalled  trivial  incidents.  The  elder 
of  the  two  had  been  rather  kind  to  a  junior  like  myself: 
he  had  nodded  good  night  to  me  one  evening  on  the  stairs, 
and  I  think  the  next  night  had  given  me  a  lump  of  Turk- 
ish delight.  Finally,  only  a  few  days  before,  he  had  by 
virtue  of  his  first-form  privileges  taken  me  for  a  stroll 
round  the  wooded  grounds,  where  the  first-form  might 
go  at  pleasure,  and  I  felt  highly  honoured  at  his  notice. 
He  had  become  rather  odd:  he  began  questions  like,  "I 

say,  do  you  ever ,"  and  stopped.    As  I  did  not  know 

what  he  was  talking  about,  and  only  grew  puzzled,  he 
remarked  rather  contemptuously,  "I  didn't  know  you  were 
such  a  kid.    Why,  when  I  was  your  age  .  .  ." 

Then  our  privacy  came  to  an  abrupt  conclusion,  for 
we  suddenly  met  Waterfield,  with  a  large  cigar,  strolling 
along  a  path.  He  took  us  both  into  a  greenhouse,  and 
gave  us  some  grapes,  and  walked  back  with  us,  one  on 
each  side  of  him. 

There  was  nothing  there  at  the  time  which  had  roused 
any  strong  curiosity  in  me.  I  had  wondered  vaguely  why 
these  sentences  were  left  unfinished,  and  why  he  had  only 
then  discovered  that  I  was  such  a  kid.  But  now,  in  an 
intensity  of  wonder  as  to  why  Waterfield  had  been  so 
glad  to  know  that  the  reason  for  this  expulsion  was  in- 
comprehensible to  me,  and  as  to  what  that  reason  was,  I 
began,  with  the  groping  instincts  of  a  young  thing,  that 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    91 

has  either  to  guess  its  way,  or  to  be  told  it,  to  fit  meaning- 
less little  pieces  of  the  puzzle  together,  trying  first  one 
pair  of  fragments  and  then  another,  intensely  curious 
and  instinctively  certain  that  there  was  something  here 
which  other  boys  understood,  and  which  Waterfield  cer- 
tainly understood,  but  which  I  did  not.  I  supposed  that 
the  completed  puzzle  contained  something  in  which  right 
and  wrong  were  involved,  since  a  transgression  such  as 
the  two  expelled  boys  had  been  guilty  of  was  an  affair 
that  could  not  be  atoned  for  by  a  caning  or  a  birching. 

For  days  after  that,  hints,  fragments,  surmises  floated 
as  thickly  about  the  school  as  motes  of  dust  in  a  sunbeam. 
We  were  forbidden  to  talk  about  the  subject  at  all,  which 
gave  an  additional  zest  to  discussion.  Some  knew  a  great 
deal,  some  knew  a  little,  some  knew  nothing.  Those  who 
knew  nothing  learned  a  little,  those  who  knew  a  little 
learned  more,  and  we  seethed  with  things  that  were  un- 
savoury, because  the  secrecy  and  the  prohibition  made  the 
unsavouriness  of  them.  .  .  .  But  in  heaven's  name,  why 
could  we  not  all  have  been  given  clean  lessons  in  natural 
history?  Is  it  better  that  young  boys  should  guess  and 
experiment  and  be  left  to  find  things  out  for  themselves, 
with  the  gusto  that  arises  from  the  notion  of  forbidden 
mysteries,  than  that  they  should  be  taught  cleanness  by 
their  elders,  instead  of  being  left  to  experimentalize  in 
dirtiness?  Until  there  is  extracted  from  boyhood  its 
proper  legitimate  inquisitiveness  which  is  the  reason  of  its 
growth,  nothing  can  prevent  boys  from  seeking  to  learn 
about  those  things  which  its  elders  cover  up  in  a  silence 
so  indiscreet  as  to  be  criminal.  It  is  a  libellous  silence, 
for  it  surrounds,  in  an  atmosphere  of  suspicion,  knowledge 
which  is  perfectly  wholesome  and  necessary. 

Between  terms  came  holidays  full  of  things  just  as 


92  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

wonderful  as  the  swamping  of  the  furnaces  of  the  Havre 
boat  and  "Benson's  lies"  generally,  and  these  must  be 
lumped  together,  to  form  a  general  summary  as  to  how  we 
amused  ourselves  for  the  next  three  years  or  so,  when  holi- 
days brought  us  together.  About  now  a  joint  literary 
effort  of  all  us  children,  called  (for  no  known  reason) 
the  Saturday  Magazine^  made  its  punctual  appearance. 
Already  we  were  such  savage  wielders  of  the  pen  that 
one  issue  every  holidays  no  longer  contented  us,  but  two 
or  three  times  between  term  and  term  my  father  and 
mother  were  regaled  of  an  evening  with  a  flood  of  prose 
and  poetry.  Arthur  would  say  one  morning,  "Let's  have 
a  Saturday  Magazine  next  Tuesday,"  and  straightway 
we  called  for  a  supply  of  that  useful  paper  known  as 
"sermon  paper,"  which  contains  exactly  twenty-three 
lines  to  a  small  quarto  page,  faintly  ruled  in  blue.  Dia- 
logues, satirical  sketches,  tales  of  adventure,  essays,  and 
poems,  were  poured  out  in  rank  profusion,  the  rule  being 
that  each  member  of  the  family  should  contribute  "at 
least"  four  pages  of  prose,  or  one  page  of  verse.  There 
was,  after  we  had  all  got  blooded  with  the  lust  of  produc- 
tion, little  cause  for  this  minimum  regulation,  and  per- 
haps it  would  have  been  better,  in  view  of  subsequent 
fruitfulness,  to  have  substituted  for  the  minimum  restric- 
tion of  "  at  least"  a  maximum  restriction  of  "at  most." 
Yet  this  habit  of  swift  composition  gave  us  all  a  certain 
ease  in  expressing  ourselves  if  only  because  we  expressed 
ourselves  so  freely.  The  contents  of  the  Saturday  Maga- 
zine were,  since  all  choice  of  subject  was  left  to  the  author, 
of  the  most  varied  description.  Arthur  would  produce 
(at  least)  an  essay  in  the  style  of  The  Spectator  (Addi- 
son's) describing  how  he  threw  a  cake  of  yellow  soap 
at  a  serenading  cat,  Nellie  would  refresh  us  with  an 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS     93 

imaginary  interview  with  our  Scotch  coachman  on  the 
subject  of  sore  backs,  Maggie,  whose  chief  avocation  now 
was  to  rear  an  enormous  number  of  guinea-pigs  and  find 
names  for  them,  gave  a  dialogue  between  Atahualpa  and 
Ixlitchochitl  (only  she  knew  how  to  spell  them) ;  poor 
Fred  treated  them  to  a  poem  on  the  Devil,  which  he  felt 
sure  solved  the  very  difficult  question  about  the  origin 
of  evil,  and  Hugh,  who  by  reason  of  his  youth  was  let 
off  with  two  pages  of  prose,  produced  adventures  so 
bloody,  that  out  of  sheer  reaction  his  audience  rocked  with 
unquenchable  laughter.  There  was  a  Saturnalian  liberty 
allowed,  and  my  mother's  experiences  with  a  runaway 
pony,  or  her  fondness  for  cheese,  were  treated  with  sharp- 
edged  mockery,  and  even  my  father  made  a  ludicrous  ap- 
pearance in  some  dialogue,  where  he  was  supposed  to  be 
worsted  by  the  superior  wit  of  his  children.  .  .  . 

In  lighter  mood  (save  the  mark)  we  played  a  poetry 
game  called  "American  nouns,"  in  which  you  had  to 
answer,  metrically  and  with  rhyme,  a  question  written 
down  at  the  top  of  a  half-sheet  of  paper,  and  bring  in 
a  particular  word  like  "unconstitutional"  or  some  stumper 
of  that  kind.  This  particular  word  was  given  to  my  Uncle 
Henry  Sidgwick  together  with  the  question,  "What  do 
you  know  of  astronomy*?"  to  which  in  the  winking  of  an 
eye  he  produced  the  following  gem : 

Phoebus,  the  glorious  king  of  the  sky, 

In  his  unconstitutional  way. 
Dispenses  at  will  his  bounties  on  high 

And  royally  orders  the  day. 
No  starry  assembly  controls  his  bright  flow, 
No  critical  comet  presumes  to  say  "No." 

Or  again,  my  mother  having  to  answer  the  question, 


94  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

"Does  the  moon  draw  the  sea?"  and  to  bring  in  the  word 
"artist,"  made  a  glorious  last  stanza: 

Ask  me  no  more,  but  let  me  be; 

My  temper's  of  the  tartest: 
For  if  the  moon  doth  draw  the  sea. 

Why,  then  she  is  an  artist. 

Somehow  she  got  the  reputation  of  being  an  indifferent 
poet,  but  that  was  considered  remarkably  good  "for  her," 
and  worthy  of  being  immortalized  on  the  printing  press 
which  belonged  to  this  epoch.  This  was  a  small  wooden 
box,  at  the  bottom  of  which  you  set  the  type  backwards 
if  you  were  capable  of  a  sustained  effort,  and  if  not,  any- 
how. The  "forme"  was  then  smudged  over  with  a  black 
roller  anointed  with  printer's  ink,  and  letters  of  the  set 
type  used  to  stick  to  it  (like  teeth  in  toffee)  and  must  be 
replaced  if  possible.  Then  a  piece  of  paper  was  gingerly 
laid  on  the  top,  a  lid  was  fitted  on,  and  a  lever  was  turned 
which  pressed  the  lid  (and  of  course  the  paper)  against 
the  inked  type.  The  lever  got  out  of  order  and  I  think 
broke,  so  instead  several  smart  hammer-blows  were  given 
to  the  lid  in  order  to  produce  the  same  result.  The 
printed  paper  was  then  taken  out,  and  the  marks  of 
punctuation  inserted  by  hand,  because  there  weren't  any 
commas  and  colons  and  so  forth  in  our  fount,  or  because 
it  was  easier  to  put  them  in  afterwards.  "E's"  had  often 
to  be  left  out  too,  and  inserted  afterwards,  because  "e" 
being  a  common  letter  was  not  sufficiently  represented 
if  you  wanted  to  print  a  long  piece  like  Uncle  Henry's. 
.  .  .  Chemistry,  also,  among  the  Arts  and  Sciences 
claimed  our  attention,  especially  Maggie's  (when  she  was 
not  too  busy  about  guinea-pigs)  and  mine.  The  highest 
feat  that  we  attained  to,  and  that  wanted  a  lot  of  stirring, 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS     95 

was  to  dissolve  a  threepenny-piece  in  nitric  acid.  Then 
there  was  photography;  I  think  a  godfather  gave  me  a 
camera,  and  we  made  our  own  wet  plates  which  was  very 
difficult,  and  began  with  pouring  collodion  (was  it  collo- 
dion^) smoothly  over  a  piece  of  glass.  Then  nitrate  of 
silver — we  might  have  used  the  dissolved  threepenny-bit, 
I  suppose — must  be  applied.  The  plates  usually  recorded 
nothing  whatever,  but  once  an  image  remarkably  like  the 
yew  tree  outside  the  nursery  window  did  certainly  ap- 
pear there.  Arthur  began  collecting  butterflies  and  moths, 
which  eventually  became  a  very  important  asset  to  a 
museum  which  now  overflowed  into  all  our  bedrooms. 
There  was  an  extraordinary  abundance  of  clouded  yellows 
{Colias  Edusa^  and  why  do  I  remember  that*?)  one  year 
and  he  used  to  return,  profusely  perspiring,  with  captives 
in  chip  boxes,  to  which  Maggie  and  I  were  anaesthetists, 
for  Nellie  took  no  part  in  this  collection,  as  she  objected 
to  killing  butterflies. 

Small  strips  of  blotting-paper — this  was  our  procedure 
— were  taken,  and  moons  of  chloroform,  quite  similar  to 
the  eau-de-Cologne  moons,  were  made  on  them  from  an 
unstoppered  bottle  of  chloroform.  These  were  inserted 
in  the  chip  boxes  while  Arthur,  the  executioner,  got  the 
oxalic  acid  and  a  nib.  With  this  lethal  weapon  he  speared 
their  unconscious  thoraxes,  and  out  came  the  setting- 
boards.  Nocturnal  expeditions  for  purposes  of  "sugar- 
ing" tree-trunks  were  even  more  exciting.  We  mixed  beer 
and  sugar,  heating  them  together,  and  at  dusk  pasted 
trees  in  the  garden  with  the  compound  which  Watch 
found  so  delicious  that  if  the  jug  containing  it  was  left 
on  the  ground  for  a  moment,  he  began  lapping  it  up. 
On  such  sugaring  nights  I  was  allowed  to  sit  up  later 
than  usual,  and  about  ten  o'clock  the  excited  procession 


96  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

again  started  with  more  chip  boxes,  and  a  dark  lantern, 
which  was  turned  on  to  the  sugared  patches.  There 
were  the  bright-eyed  creatures  of  the  night,  drunkenly 
feasting,  and  Arthur  enriched  his  pill-boxes  with  Silver 
Y  and  an  occasional  Golden  Y,  and  rejected  the  Yellow 
Underwing,  and  grew  taut  over  the  Crimson  Underwing, 
while  I  carried  a  butterfly  net,  and  swooped  with  it  at 
wandering  moths  which  were  attracted  by  the  unveiled 
lantern  carried  by  Maggie,  and  Watch  wagged  his  tail 
and  licked  up  gratefully  the  droppings  from  the  sugared 
tree  and  any  moths  that  might  be  on  them.  And  then 
Beth  would  come  out  and  say  that  "my  Mamma"  said 
that  I  must  go  to  bed  at  once,  and  I  usually  didn't.  O 
happy  nights! 

I  think  every  day  in  those  holidays  must  have  lasted 
a  week,  and  every  month  a  year,  for  when  I  consider  it, 
we  surely  spent  the  whole  afternoons  in  playing 
"Pirates"  in  the  garden.  Theoretically  now,  as  well  as 
practically  then,  I  believe  that  "Pirates,"  a  game  evolved 
by  the  family  generally,  and  speedily  brought  to  its  per- 
fect and  stereotyped  form,  was  the  best  sporting  inven- 
tion, requiring  no  material  implements,  of  modem  time. 
What  powers  of  the  mind,  what  refinements  of  cunning, 
compared  to  which  deer-stalking  is  mere  child's  play,  were 
brought  into  action !  For  here  we  were  up  against  each 
other's  wits,  and  awful  were  the  results  of  any  psycho- 
logical mistake,  I  must  describe  that  game  for  the  bene- 
fit of  families  of  energetic  children  who  like  thinking  and 
running  and  scoring  off  each  other. 

At  the  top  of  the  garden  there  was  a  summer-house, 
and  that  of  course  was  "home."  There  was  a  lateral 
laurel  hedge  to  the  left  of  it  which  screened  a  path  that 
led  by  the  copse  outside  the  nursery  windows,  and  com- 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    97 

municated  by  means  of  a  garden  door  with  the  abysses  of 
the  stable  copse,  and  the  stable  yard.  The  henyard,  an 
outlying  piece  of  kitchen  garden,  and  the  other  copse, 
excellent  hiding-places  in  themselves,  were  outside  the 
range  of  pirates,  and  the  touch-line,  so  to  speak,  beyond 
which  neither  pirates  nor  trophy-seekers  might  go  passed 
on  the  hither  side  of  these.  Straight  in  front  of  "home" 
was  an  open  space,  safe  in  itself  but  hedged  in  with  peril, 
for  there  were  climbable  trees,  from  which  a  pirate  might 
almost  drop  on  your  head,  and  thickets.  To  the  right 
was  a  most  dangerous  door,  because  the  latch  was  stiff 
and  if  you  were  pursued  from  outside  by  the  pirate  you 
were  almost  bound  to  be  caught  before  you  could  kick 
it  open.  In  the  middle  distance,  straight  ahead  were 
beehives;  beyond,  kitchen  garden  and  orchard.  Never 
was  there  anything  so  trappy. 

So  much  for  the  theatre:  the  drajiiatis  personcz  were 
five  (occasionally  six  when  my  mother  played,  once  seven 
when  my  father  played),  and  of  this  number  there  were 
chosen  in  rotation  two  pirates,  but  my  father  and  mother, 
of  course,  were  never  pirates,  because  they  would  not  have 
had  a  chance,  as  you  will  see.  The  pirates,  being  chosen, 
went  away  together,  and  were  given  five  minutes  law  to 
hide  wherever  they  chose  within  the  assigned  limits.  Dur- 
ing these  five  minutes  a  captain  was  chosen  from  among 
the  blockade  runners,  who  directed  his  side  as  to  what 
trophy  each  of  them  was  to  bring  from  his  cruise.  One 
had,  for  instance,  to  bring  back  a  croquet  hoop  from  the 
lawn,  another  an  apple  from  the  third  tree  in  the  orchard, 
another  an  ivy-leaf  from  the  stable-yard.  With  their 
trophies  in  their  hands  they  had  to  return  in  safety  to  the 
summer-house  without  being  caught  by  a  pirate. 

So  far  all  is  simple,  but  now  there  comes  in  the  great 


98  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

point  of  the  game.  No  pirate  could  catch,  you^  until  you 
had  your  trophy^  whatever  it  ivas^  about  you.  Thus  if 
your  trophy  was  the  curry-brush,  you  might  (and  did) 
if  you  were  seen  by  a  pirate  and  knew  it,  hastily  pluck 
up  a  croquet  hoop  and  begin  running.  Then  the  pirate, 
supposing  that  this  was  your  trophy,  ran  like  mad  after 
you,  and  when  he  caught  you,  you  merely  assured  him 
that  the  croquet  hoop  wasn't  your  trophy.  That  was  a 
score,  it  also  winded  the  pirate  a  little,  and  perhaps  Nellie, 
going  cautiously  towards  the  croquet-lawn  where  her  real 
mission  was,  would  have  observed  this,  and  plucking  up 
a  croquet  hoop  (which  was  her  true  trophy)  begin  to  run. 
On  which  the  slightly  winded  pirate  would  leave  you  and 
run  after  Nellie,  who  generally  screamed,  thus  giving 
away  the  fact  that  she  had  her  trophy.  Meantime  you 
would  proceed  with  caution  towards  the  stable-yard,  seize 
up  a  curry-brush  and  instantly  hear  a  crash  from  the 
copse  and  find  the  second  pirate  in  pursuit.  Even  as  deep 
called  unto  deep  the  pirates  would  then  shout  to  each 
other,  and  though  you  thought  you  could  get  away  from 
one,  the  other,  having  captured  Nellie,  would  appear  in 
front  of  you.  .  .  . 

There  were  infinite  psychological  problems.  Suppos- 
ing your  trophy  had  been  an  apple,  you  would,  if  you 
were  very  cunning,  put  it  in  your  pocket,  and  continue  a 
pleasant  stroll,  without  hurry,  more  or  less  in  the  direction 
of  "home."  Then  if  a  fast  pirate  like  Arthur  sighted  you, 
you  would  not  run  away  at  all,  but  ask  him  sarcastically 
if  he  had  caught  anybody  yet.  There  was  a  good  chance 
that  he  would  think  you  had  not  yet  got  your  trophy 
and  would  continue  to  follow  you,  till  he  saw  another 
blockade  runner  looking  guilty.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
might  conceivably  suspect  you  had  it  already  and  clap  an 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS    99 

awful  hand  on  your  shoulder,  and  say,  "Caught."  But 
probably  he  preferred  to  watch  you,  for  that  made  more 
sport,  and  then  you  would  suddenly  sprint  for  home,  while 
he  was  off  his  guard.  There  was  a  bay  tree  round  which  a 
skilful  dodger  could  score  off  a  heavier  and  faster  craft, 
but  under  no  circumstances  might  you  jump  over  flower- 
beds, because  that  led  to  running  through  them  instead, 
which  was  ruinous  to  petunias. 

In  the  same  summer-house  which  was  "home,"  we  also 
held  a  mystical  "Chapter,"  of  which  Arthur  was  war- 
den, Nellie,  Maggie  and  myself,  sub-warden,  secretary 
and  treasurer,  and  Hugh  was  Henchman.  The  word 
"Chapter"  was  no  doubt  of  Cathedral  origin,  and  denoted 
a  ceremonious  meeting.  We  all  subscribed  to  the  funds 
of  the  Chapter  (my  mother,  who  was  an  honorary  mem- 
ber, subscribed  most)  and  the  money  was  spent  in  official 
salaries,  and  in  providing  decorations,  chains  and  crosses 
and  ribands  for  the  officials.  The  largest  salary,  which  I 
think  was  half  a  crown,  was  drawn  by  Arthur  as  warden; 
he  also  wore  the  most  magnificent  jewel,  while  Hugh, 
the  menial,  drew  but  the  salary  of  one  penny,  and  had 
a  very  poor  gaud  to  console  himself  with.  As  Hench- 
man, his  duty  was  chiefly  to  run  errands  for  the  rest 
of  the  Chapter,  to  summon  my  mother  when  she  was 
allowed  to  appear,  to  kill  wasps,  and  to  fetch  the  war- 
den's straw  hat.  He  was  the  only  member  of  the  Chapter 
who  dared  to  dispute  the  will  of  the  warden,  and  was 
known  to  exclaim,  "Why  shouldn't  Fred*?"  (the  treas- 
urer) when  he  was  tired  of  running  about.  Even  more 
subversive  of  canonical  discipline  was  his  assertion  one 
day  that  he  would  not  be  a  member  of  any  more  societies, 
in  which  he  was  only  deputy  sub-sub-bootboy.  But  I 
secretly  (though  treasurer)  rather  sympathized  with  him. 


100  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

for  I  considered  then,  and  consider  still,  that  the  Chap- 
ter was  rather  a  soft  job  for  Arthur.  It  is  true  that  he 
invented  it,  that  he  covered  our  symbols  of  office  with 
sealing-wax  lacquer — what  has  happened  to  sealing-wax 
lacquer  all  these  years'? — and  that  he  wrote  out  in  ex- 
quisite black-letter  hand  the  patents  whereby  we  held 
office,  signed  by  himself,  but  a  salary  of  half  a  crown  was 
excessive.  At  the  meetings  we  had  to  present  these  pat- 
ents to  him  before  we  took  our  seats,  and  then  had  a  short 
formal  conversation  in  which  we  were  "Brother  Sub- 
warden,  Brother  Secretary"  and  so  forth,  and  read  the 
minutes  of  the  last  meeting,  and  when  the  presence  of 
the  Honorary  Member  was  requested.  Brother  Henchman 
had  to  go  to  find  her.  Donations  were  made,  and  salaries 
were  paid,  but  I  am  confident  that  nothing  else  happened. 
The  Chapter  was  then  adjourned;  the  orders  were  put 
back  in  a  box,  and  we  played  pirates.  .  .  . 

And  yet  though  we  played  Pirates  all  day,  and  col- 
lected clouded  yellows  all  day,  and  printed  the  most  ex- 
quisite poems  as  well  as  writing  them,  and  held  Chapters, 
and  did  a  certain  amount  of  holiday-task,  and  rode  with 
my  father,  and  drove  with  my  mother,  there  was  always 
time  for  other  excitements.  There  was  bathing  in  the 
Fal,  there  were  picnics  at  Perran,  especially  when  a  south- 
west gale  had  been  blowing,  and  from  seven  miles  inland 
there  was  audible  the  thump  of  Atlantic  waves  on  that 
bleak  beach.  Then  in  Truro  itself  there  were  great 
things  to  be  done,  for  the  volcanic  energy  of  my  father 
had  soon  kindled  the  county  into  pouring  out  money  for 
the  erection  of  a  new  Cathedral,  the  first  that  had  been 
built  in  England  since  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  St. 
Mary's  Church  was  the  site  of  it,  and  to-day  an  aisle  of 
St.  Mary's  (the  rest  of  a  wonderfully  hideous  church 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS  101 

being  demolished)  forms  the  baptistery  of  the  Cathedral. 
The  ground  was  cleared  and  foundations  were  dug,  and 
slowly  the  great  stately  building  began  to  rise  flower-like 
from  the  barren  soil.  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  of  us 
cared  independently  two  straws  about  a  Cathedral,  but 
to  go  down  there  with  my  father,  and  hear  him  talk  to 
Mr.  Bubb,  the  Clerk  of  the  Works,  infected  us  with  his 
noble  zeal,  and  the  rising  walls  got  pleasingly  confused 
with  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  by  Nehemiah,  and  the 
vision  of  the  New  Jerusalem..  Hugh,  I  am  certain,  was 
allowed  to  lay  a  stone  himself,  and  Mr.  Bubb  presented 
him  with  the  trowel  and  mallet  with  which  he  had  laid 
it.  Or  did  we  all  lay  stones?  I  seem  to  hear  my  father 
say  in  an  awestruck  voice,  "There,  you  have  helped  to 
build  Truro  Cathedral  I"  but  I  am  not  sure  whether  that 
was  said  to  me  or  not,  and  my  uncertainty  is  the  measure, 
I  am  afraid,  of  the  impression  that  the  building  of  the 
Cathedral  really  made  on  me.  .  .  . 

I  wonder  if  it  could  have  been  otherwise,  and  with 
regret  I  do  not  see  how  it  could.  As  his  own  childish 
records  show,  my  father  at  my  age  then  was  a  zealous 
ecclesiastic,  for  did  he  not  when  ripely  eleven  obtain  the 
use  in  his  mother's  house  of  an  empty  room,  which  he 
converted  into  an  oratory*?  There  was  an  altar  there, 
and  it  was  hung  with  rubbings  he  had  made  from  brasses 
in  churches.  This  piece  of  childish  piety  was  certainly 
natural  to  him,  and  as  certainly  there  was  no  kind  of 
priggishness  in  it,  for  he  set  a  booby-trap  over  the  door, 
so  that  his  sisters  should  not  be  able  to  enter  "his"  oratory 
in  his  absence  without  being  detected.  He  did  not  want 
his  sisters  praying  there:  and  the  booby-trap  over  the 
chapel  door  was  certainly  an  admirable  device  to  keep 
them  out.     But  in  none  of  us,  nor  indeed  in  my  mother, 


102  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

was  there  implanted  an  ecclesiastical  mind,  not  even  in 
Hugh.  He  took  orders  it  is  true,  in  the  English  Church, 
and  subsequently  the  Catholic  Church  claimed  him,  and 
to  it  and  its  service  he  gave  his  whole  love  and  energy. 
But  the  ecclesiastical  mind  in  him  was  a  later  develop- 
ment, for  it  must  be  remembered  that  before  taking  orders 
at  all  he  had  tried  and  failed  to  get.  into  the  Indian  Civil 
Service.  (He  and  I,  at  that  time,  used  to  dress  up  in 
nightshirts,  with  trousers  over  our  shoulders  to  represent 
stoles,  and  celebrate  the  "rite  of  the  Silver  Cow"  in  our 
sitting-room  at  Addington.  I  feel  sure  that  there  was 
not  any  solid  profanity  in  it :  we  but  parodied,  and  that 
with  great  amusement,  the  genuflexions,  the  bobbings 
and  bowings,  the  waving  of  a  censer,  considered  merely 
as  ridiculous  pieces  of  ritual,  but  such  a  rite  could  not 
be  held  indicative  of  a  reverent  attitude  towards  ritual 
as  such.)  But  my  father's  mind,  even  as  a  child,  was 
strongly  ecclesiastical;  only  his  children  did  not  share 
it,  nor  did  my  mother.  Of  all  men  and  women  that  I 
have  ever  known,  she  was  the  most  deeply  religious  in 
her  realization  of  the  pervading  presence  of  God,  but 
the  garb,  the  habiliments  of  her  religion  were  not  the  same 
as  my  father's.  To  him  the  Church  and  its  ceremonies 
were  a  natural  self-expression,  and  in  that  he  gorgeously 
clothed  his  love  of  God.  To  none  of  us  was  such  ex- 
pression natural,  and  thus  his  enthusiasms  though  they  in- 
fected us  to  some  extent  were  things  caught  from  him, 
not  cathedraically  developed.  That  he  missed  this  in  all 
of  us,  I  think  could  not  be  helped,  but  I  do  not  think,  at 
that  time  at  any  rate,  that  he  missed  it  much,  for  he  was 
Elijah  in  the  whirlwind  of  his  enthusiasms,  and  caught 
us  all  up,  as  in  the  fringes  of  a  dust-cloud,  to  subside 
again  when  he  had  passed. 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS  103 

What  estranged  was  my  continued  fear  of  him,  which 
now  yields  easily  to  analysis  and  dispersal,  but  was  in 
those  days  regarded  by  me  merely  as  an  instinct,  as  natural 
and  as  incontrovertible  as  hunger  or  thirst.  I  under- 
stood neither  him  nor  any  part  of  him.  I  did  not  grasp 
the  fact  that  the  root  in  him  as  regards  his  children  was 
his  love  for  them,  and  that  it  was  his  love  and  nothing  else 
that,  at  bottom,  was  accountable  for  his  quickness  in 
putting  his  finger  on  a  fault  and  his  sternness  in  rebuke. 
It  was  out  of  his  love  that  he  regarded  himself  so  strictly 
as  responsible  for  our  mental  and  moral  education,  and 
what  I  thought  his  readiness  to  blame  was  only  the  watch- 
fulness of  it.  For  instance,  if,  as  I  so  well  specifically 
remember,  I  appeared  with  an  umbrella  huddled  up  any- 
how in  its  confining  elastic,  he  saw  in  that  a  tendency 
towards  slovenliness,  and  he  made,  in  the  fervency  of  his 
wish  that  I  should  not  grow  up  to  be  of  slovenly  habit, 
no  allowance  for  the  natural  frailty  of  tender  years. 
Trivial  carelessness  and  unpunctuality  in  the  same  way 
were  pounced  upon  with  a  severity  that  altogether  over- 
brimmed the  cup  of  the  occasion;  he  saw  in  them  (and 
his  love  hastened  to  correct)  instances  of  a  dangerous 
tendency.  In  consequence  he  brought  great  and  formid- 
able guns  to  bear  on  small  faults,  which  could  just  as 
efficiently  have  been  visited  with  a  light  instead  of  a 
heavy  hand.  Sometimes,  too,  he  was  utterly  wrong  in 
his  interpretation  of  our  motives,  and  this  gave  us  a 
sense  of  injustice;  etchingly  recorded  on  my  memory,  for 
instance,  is  a  Sunday  afternoon  walk  when  Maggie  and 
I  pranced  and  ran  ahead,  from  the  mere  exuberance,  as 
far  as  I  can  judge,  produced  by  a  heavy  meal  and  a  fine 
day.  But  my  father  put  the  gloomiest  interpretation  on 
our  antics,  telling  us  that  we  were  behaving  thus  in  order 


104  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

to  excite  the  admiration  of  passers-by  at  our  agility. 
"You  are  saying  to  yourselves,  'I  am  Hercules,  I  am 
Diana,'  "  he  witheringly  observed;  whereas,  nothing  was 
farther  from  our  thoughts.  But  it  was  unthinkable  to 
argue  the  point,  to  assure  him  that  no  similitude  of  that 
kind  had  ever  suggested  itself.  The  only  course  was  to 
walk  soberly  and  sedately  instead  of  running.  And  since 
the  lives  of  young  children,  especially  if  they  are  at  all 
vividly  inclined,  are  a  chessboard  of  small  faults,  this 
fear  of  the  rebuke,  in  the  absence  of  comprehension  of 
its  root-cause,  became  a  constant  anxiety  to  us,  making 
us  mere  smooth-faced,  blue-eyed  dolls  in  his  presence, 
with  set  fixed  movements  and  expressions;  and  when  re- 
leased from  it,  we  scampered  off  as  if  from  an  examination 
under  a  magnifying-glass. 

I  do  not  mean  to  convey  the  idea  that  my  father  was 
continually  pulling  us  up,  for  nothing  is  further  from 
the  truth.  Continually  we  played  to  him,  and  he  danced 
the  most  fascinating  measure;  continually  he  played  to 
us,  and  our  dancing  strove  to  keep  time  with  his  enchant- 
ing airs.  He  could  render  us  speechless  with  laughter  at 
his  inimitable  mirth,  or  breathless  with  suspense  at  his 
stories.  But  all  the  time  there  was  this  sense  that  at  any 
moment  the  mirth  might  cease,  and  that  a  formidable  re- 
buke might  be  visited  on  an  offence  that  we  had  no  idea 
we  had  committed.  But  it  was  never  any  joy  in  fault- 
finding that  prompted  it:  the  real  cause  was  the  watch- 
fulness and  responsibility  of  his  love.  How  often  our 
fear  was  ill-founded,  passes  enumeration,  but  one  way 
or  another,  it  had  become  a  habit  with  all  of  us,  except 
perhaps  Nellie,  for  she,  out  of  a  remarkable  faculty  of  not 
knowing  at  all  what  fear  meant  (except  when  playing 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS  105 

Pirates)  arrived  at  a  much  completer  comprehension  of 
my  father  than  any  of  us. 

Still  less  did  the  rest  of  us  understand  those  fits  of 
black  depression  which  from  time  to  time  assailed  and 
overwhelmed  my  father,  not  grasping  the  fact  that  when 
they  were  on  him,  he  really  ceased  to  be  himself,  and  was 
under  a  sort  of  obsession.  They  were,  I  imagine,  as 
purely  physical  as  a  cold  in  the  head  or  an  ache  of  in- 
digestion, but  during  the  two  or  three  days  that  they  lasted 
he  was  utterly  unapproachable.  He  would  sit  through 
a  meal,  or  take  us  out  for  a  walk  in  a  silence  which  if 
broken  at  all,  was  broken  only  by  blame  or  irony.  If 
we  spoke  to  him,  there  would  be  no  reply;  if,  under  the 
intolerable  heaviness  we  were  silent,  he  would  ask  if 
there  was  nothing  that  interested  us  which  he  was  worthy 
of  hearing.  .  .  .  And  all  the  time,  as  we  knew  later,  he 
was  struggling  with  this  demoniacal  load,  longing  to  be 
rid  of  it,  yearning  to  burst  out  of  it,  but  possessed  by  it 
to  the  point  of  helplessness.  While  the  fit  was  on  him, 
and  he  was  in  this  abnormal  state,  the  most  innocent  of 
words  and  actions  would  evoke  a  formidable  censure, 
and  I  suspect  that  three-quarters  of  our  fear  for  him 
were  derived  from  our  belief  that  these  attacks  were  a 
part  of  him,  always  there,  and  always  liable  to  come  into 
play.  That  was  an  entire  mistake,  though  it  was  a  natural 
one.  As  it  was,  these  black  fits  were  not  incapsulated  by 
us,  but  suffered  to  mingle  with  and  make  part  of  our 
estimate  of  him.  That  we  should  so  have  feared  him,  that 
we  should  so  have  made  ourselves  unnatural  and  formal 
with  him,  when  all  the  time  his  love  was  streaming  out 
towards  us,  makes  a  pathos  so  pitiful  that  I  cannot  bear 
to  think  of  it.  But  there  it  was,  and  long  it  lasted,  and 
all  the  time  I  never  got  a  true  perspective  of  him.    V/e 


106  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

saw  ourselves  as  a  nervous  row  of  pupils  before  a  school- 
master, and  all  the  time  it  was  his  very  strictness  which 
was  a  manifestation  of  his  love,  and  his  love  hungered 
for  ours.  Our  troubles  and  our  joys,  the  worst  of  us 
and  the  best  of  us,  went  like  homing  pigeons  to  my 
mother,  and  she  gave  the  same  welcome  to  the  one  and 
to  the  other,  and  for  ever  treasured  both. 

The  relationship  of  each  one  of  us  to  her  was  unique 
as  regards  any  other  of  us,  for  each  of  us  found  exactly 
and  precisely  what  we  desired,  though  how  often  we  did 
not  know  what  we  desired  till  she  gave  it  us !  All  her  life 
she  was  wiser  and  younger  than  anybody  else,  limpid  and 
bubbling,  and  from  the  first  days  when  any  of  us  began 
to  understand  what  she  was,  she  never  had  any  blank 
surprises  in  store,  for  it  was  always  quite  obvious  that 
she  would  understand  and  appreciate,  and  would  never 
condone  but  always  forgive.  Never  from  first  to  last 
did  I  repent  having  opened  my  heart  to  her;  never  did  I 
not  repent  having  shut  it.  I  do  not  think  she  ever  asked 
any  of  us  for  a  confidence,  but  the  knowledge,  conveyed 
in  the  very  atmosphere  of  her,  that  she  was  ready,  toeing 
the  mark,  so  to  speak,  to  run  to  us  when  the  pistol  fired, 
gave  her  that  particular  precision  of  sympathy.  Did  she 
scold  US'?  Why,  of  course;  but  how  her  precious  balms 
healed  our  heads  I 

Love  is  a  stem  business,  and  about  hers  there  was  never 
the  faintest  trace  of  sentimentality.  She  loved  with  a 
swift  eagerness,  and  she  had  no  warm  slops  to  comfort 
us.  But  there  was  always  the  compliment  of  consulta- 
tion. "Now  you've  behaved  very  badly  indeed,"  she 
would  say,  "Don't  you  think  the  first  thing  to  do  is  to 
say  you're  sorry'?"  .  .  .  And  then  with  that  inimitable 
breaking  of  her  smile,  "Oh,  my  dear,  I  am  glad  you  told 


PRIVATE  SCHOOL  AND  HOLIDAYS  107 

me."  .  .  .  And  did  ever  any  other  mother  at  the  age 
of  forty  run  so  violently  in  playing  that  strenuous  game 
called,  "Three  knights  a-riding,"  that  she  broke  a  sinew 
in  her  leg"?  Mine  did.  And  did  ever  a  mother  so  en- 
courage an  extremely  naughty  boy  of  thirteen  after  a 
really  dreadful  interview  with  his  father,  as  by  giving 
him  a  prayer  book  and  saying,  "I  shall  write  in  it  'Where- 
withal shall  a  young  man  cleanse  his  ways'?'  "  Being 
called  a  young  man  at  the  age  of  thirteen  was  enough  in 
itself  to  make  him  realize  what  an  exceedingly  tiresome 
child  he  had  been.  Tact!  Beth  used  to  call  it  "tac," 
and  when  I  got  my  shoes  wet  through  three  times  a  day, 
or  fell  backwards  into  one  of  those  Cornish  streams  she 
said,  "Eh,  Master  Fred,  but  you've  got  no  tac'  I"  No 
more  I  had. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  DUNCE  S  PROGRESS 


AFTER  that  first  brilliant  year  at  school,  when  I 
got  so  many  prizes  without  taking  any  trouble, 
there  ensued  two  extremely  lean  years,  during  which  I 
took  just  as  much  trouble  as  before,  and  got  nothing  at 
all.  For  just  as,  physically,  growing  children  spurt  and 
are  quiescent  again,  storing  force  for  the  next  expansion, 
so  mentally  they  have  in  the  intervals  of  development 
periods  of  utter  stagnation,  I  had  swept,  a  prodigious 
infant,  through  all  the  other  forms,  leaving  Geege  and 
Davy  and  Daubeny  mere  dim  fixed  stars  across  the  path 
of  the  comet,  and  then  the  unfortunate  comet  gave  one 
faint  "pop"  and  went  completely  out.  Other  boys 
straggled  and  struggled  up  to  the  first  form,  which  I  had 
so  easily  stormed,  and  I  continued  sinking  through  them, 
like  a  drowned  rag,  to  my  appointed  place  at  the  bottom. 
Agitated  letters  were  exchanged  between  Waterfield  and 
my  father,  of  which  I  found  the  other  day  several  of 
Waterfield's ;  he  clung  to  a  certain  forlorn  optimism  about 
me,  but  seemed  puzzled  to  know  why  without  positively 
neglecting  my  work  I  invariably  did  it  worse  than  any- 
body in  the  form.  He  still  believed  me  not  to  be  stupid. 
In  that  quiescent  period  I  could  not  assimilate  any  more ; 
all  that  I  was  fed  with  merely  gave  me  indigestion,  and 
the  mental  stuffing  was  liberally  supplied  to  the  poor 
goose,  for  at  the  end  of  that  year  I  was  to  try  for  an 

108J 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  109 

Eton  scholarship,  with  regard  to  which  my  prospects  grew 
ever  less  encouraging.  A  drawer  in  Waterfield's  study 
adjoining  the  room  where  the  first  class  was  tutored  was 
entirely  devoted  to  the  dreadful  copies  of  Greek  and 
Latin  prose  and  Latin  elegiacs  which  I  produced.  Week 
after  week  these  grew  and  collected  there,  each  of  them 
thickly  scored  by  Waterfield's  red  ink.  Of  one  of  them 
I  can  recall  the  image  now;  scarcely  a  word  remained 
that  was  not  underscored  in  red.  But  I  gather  that  Water- 
field  must  have  concluded  that  some  blight  other  than 
carelessness  and  inattention  was  responsible  for  my  fail- 
ures, for  he  never  threatened  me  with  rulers  or  birchings 
for  them.  Mentally,  during  those  three  atrocious  terms, 
the  only  thing  in  which  I  can  remember  taking  the  slight- 
est interest  was  hearing  him  read  out  the  piece  of  Eng- 
lish verse  which  it  was  our  task  to  turn  into  Latin  elegiacs. 
His  reading  was  altogether  beautiful;  often  his  voice 
broke,  as  when  he  read  us  "Home  they  brought  her  war- 
rior dead,"  and,  though  he  quite  failed  to  instil  in  me 
the  desire  to  put  such  verses  into  beautiful  Latin,  he  in- 
tensely kindled  my  love  of  beautiful  English.  Similarly, 
when  the  Sunday  divinity  lesson  was  over  and  such  storms 
as  had  raged  round  St.  Paul's  missionary  journey  were 
stilled,  he  would  tell  us  all  to  make  ourselves  comfort- 
able, and  for  the  rest  of  the  hour  entranced  us  with  The 
Filgrim's  Progress.  His  delightful  voice  melodiously 
rose  and  fell;  he  asked  us  no  inconvenient  questions  to 
probe  the  measure  of  our  attention ;  his  object,  in  which  he 
strikingly  succeeded,  was  to  let  us  hear  magnificent  Eng- 
lish magnificently  read,  and  to  leave  us  to  gather  our  own 
honey. 

A  great  event  of  the  summer  term  was  Waterfield's 
birthday.     The  whole  school  subscribed  to  give  him  a 


110  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

birthday  present,  which  must  have  been  of  some  value, 
for  the  sum  of  five  shillings  or  ten  shillings  (I  forget 
which)  was  charged  up  to  every  boy's  bill.  But  we  cer- 
tainly got  that  back  again,  for  the  birthday,  kept  as  a 
whole  holiday,  was  celebrated  by  everybody  being  taken 
to  the  Crystal  Palace  for  the  day  and  furnished  with  half 
a  crown  to  spend  as  he  pleased,  so  decidedly  Waterfield 
was  not  "up"  on  the  transaction.  A  few  of  the  more 
favoured  were  invited  to  spend  the  day  on  the  Thames 
with  him  and  his  family;  they  embarked  on  a  steam 
launch  at  Richmond  and  had  luncheon  in  some  riverside 
wood.  Now,  above  all  things  in  the  world  I  longed  to 
see  the  Crystal  Palace,  of  which  I  had  formed  the  image 
as  of  some  ineffable  glittering  constellation,  a  piece  of 
real  fairyland  fallen  from  the  sky  and  now  at  rest  on 
Sydenham  Hill,  and  it  was  with  a  black  despair  that  I 
received  the  distinction  of  being  bidden  to  the  family 
picnic  instead.  But  a  dea  ex  machina  came  to  the  rescue 
in  the  person  of  Mrs.  Waterfield,  who  quite  ironically 
said  to  me,  "I  suppose  you  would  much  sooner  go  to  the 
Crystal  Palace*?"  Throwing  "tac"  and  politeness  to  the 
winds,  I  unhesitatingly  told  her  that  I  certainly  would, 
and  I  was  given  my  half-crown  and  joined  the  proletariat. 
...  Or  was  Mrs.  Waterfield's  enquiry  not  ironical  at  all, 
but  a  piece  of  supreme  "tac"?  Had  some  hint  reached 
her  that  I  really  wanted  to  go  to  the  Crystal  Palace"? 
I  cannot  decide.  In  any  case,  that  kind-hearted  woman 
would  have  been  rewarded  for  making  the  suggestion, 
could  she  have  realized  with  what  rapture  I  beheld  that 
amazing  edifice  glittering  in  the  sun,  and  went  through 
its  Palm  Court  and  its  Egyptian  Court  and  its  Assyrian 
Court,  and  beheld  all  that  the  Prince  Consort  had  done 
to  educate  the  love  of  beauty  in  these  barbarous  islanders. 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  111 

All  day  I  wandered  enchanted,  and  laid  out  most  of  the 
half-crown  in  a  glass  paper-weight  with  a  picture  of  the 
Crystal  Palace  below,  and  the  remainder  in  a  small  nickel 
ornament  in  the  shape  of  an  ewer,  undoubtedly  made  in 
Germany.  Indeed,  I  was  wise  to  fasten  on  the  oppor- 
tunity given  me  by  Mrs.  Waterfield,  for  thus  I  secured 
the  wonderful  experience  of  being  absolutely  bowled 
over  by  the  beauty  of  the  Crystal  Palace,  which  has  not 
happened  to  everybody.  All  the  same,  I  suffered  a  few 
years  later  a  crushing  and  double  disillusionment,  for  I 
was  taken  there  again  to  hear  Israel  in  Egypt  at  the 
Handel  Festival.  On  that  occasion  my  main  impression 
was  that  I  thought  the  Crystal  Palace  a  very  suitable  place 
for  that  monstrous  performance.  The  scale  on  which  the 
one  was  built  and  on  which  the  other  was  performed 
served  not  to  conceal  but  to  accentuate  the  essential 
meanness  of  each.  .  .  . 

I  weave  this  into  a  digression  not  unconnected  with 
the  first  of  these  lean  years.  Though  mentally,  as  re- 
gards the  metres  of  foreign  verse  and  the  inexorable  gram- 
mar of  Greek  and  Latin,  I  was  as  idle  "as  a  painted  ship 
upon  a  painted  ocean,"  I  gorged  myself  not  only  on  the 
readings  of  Waterfield,  but  on  music.  That  frail  widow, 
Mrs.  Russell,  is  probably  unknown  to  fame  as  a  teacher 
of  the  piano,  but  I  owe  her  an  undying  debt  of  gratitude. 
I  begged  to  be  released  from  the  study  of  such  works 
as  those  of  Mr.  Diabelli,  whom  I  had  long  ago  judged 
and  found  wanting,  and  from  "arrangements"  of  the 
Barber  of  Seville,  and  even  from  the  sugared  melodies 
of  "Songs  without  Words"  (over  which,  especially  No. 
8,  an  occasional  tear  used  to  drop  from  Mrs.  Russell's 
eyes),  and  to  be  allowed  to  entrap  my  awkward  fingers 
in  Bach,  whom  I  had  heard  rendered  by  the  "Fanner 


112  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Society"  at  Lincoln.  My  request  was  granted,  and  I  was 
permitted  to  make  a  rapturous  hash  of  slow  Sarabands 
and  more  rapid  Gavottes  and  Minuets  out  of  the  Suites 
Anglais es.  Never  was  there  so  enthralled  a  bungler;  for 
I  could  hear  (this  I  positively  affirm),  through  the  crash 
of  my  awkwardness,  what  was  meant.  Bach  then  and 
there  and  ever  afterwards  was  my  gold  standard  in  the 
innumerable  coinage  of  music.  There  was  good  silver, 
there  was  good  copper,  there  was  promissory  paper.  All 
these,  in  a  loose  metaphor,  might  temporarily  be  depreci- 
ated in  the  exchange  of  my  mind,  or  might  have  a  rise, 
but  Bach  remained  gold.  Out  of  my  "taste,"  whatever 
that  was,  I  was  quite  prepared  to  put  Beethoven  (in  slow 
movements)  in  his  place,  and  to  give  Mozart,  as  judged 
by  his  ''Variations  on  a  Theme  in  A,"  a  very  dis- 
tinguished position,  and  to  concede  a  neatness  to  "The 
Harmonious  Blacksmith."  Brahms  I  had  never  heard 
of.  But  all  these,  then  as  now,  were,  at  the  most,  dis- 
tinguished gentlemen,  equerries  or  grooms  or  chamber- 
lains in  attendance  round  about  the  court,  and  having 
speech  with  the  King. 

By  the  time  I  heard  Israel  in  Egypt  at  the  Handel 
Festival,  I  had  also  heard  the  St.  Mattliew  Fassion  at 
St.  Paul's,  and  I  quite  definitely  compared  them.  Prob- 
ably it  is  a  mistake  ever  to  compare  one  achievement  with 
another  even  if  they  are  built  on  an  appeal  to  the  same 
sense :  it  is  no  more  use  comparing  Handel  with  Bach  than 
it  is  comparing  a  sunset  with  the  view  of  the  Bernese 
Oberland.  But,  taken  by  itself,  that  performance  of 
Israel  in  Egypt  seemed  to  me  a  monstrous  attempt  to 
cover  up  a  common  invention  by  inflating  it  with  noise. 
The  fact  that  there  were  four  thousand  (or  perhaps  four 
million)  singers  all  bawling,  "He  gave  them  hailstones 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  118 

for  rain,"  did  not  essentially  make  the  hailstorm  one 
whit  the  stormier,  though  the  immensity  of  the  row- 
pleasantly  stunned  the  senses.  It  would  be  as  unreason- 
able to  take  a  carte-de-visite  photograph  of  a  man  with  a 
stupid  mouth  and  a  chin-beard,  and  hope  to  make  it  im- 
pressive by  enlarging  it  to  the  size  of  the  Great  Pyramid. 
Indeed,  the  bigger  the  enlargement,  the  sorrier  would  be 
the  result.  But  by  that  time  I  had  the  sense  to  see  how 
delicate  and  delightful  an  artist  is  Handel  when  he  con- 
fines himself  to  the  limits  of  his  true  territory.  For  sweet- 
ness and  neatness  of  melody,  in  the  violin  sonata  in  A, 
the  piano  sonatas,  and  songs  from  countless  operas,  I 
knew  he  had  no  rival — in  the  silver  standard.  But  no 
one,  with  the  one  exception  of  Bach,  has  ever  defeated 
the  awful  limitations  of  the  "form"  of  oratorio,  and,  as 
a  rule,  the  larger  the  orchestra,  the  more  stupendous  the 
body  of  voice,  the  more  shaky  becomes  the  credit  of  the 
composer.  Indeed,  the  very  fact  that  so  gigantic  a  rep- 
resentation as  a  Crystal  Palace  Handel  Festival  was  ever 
desired  or  enjoyed  postulates  not  only  a  complete  want 
of  musical  perception  on  the  part  of  the  public,  but  a  cor- 
responding want  of  musical  achievement  on  the  part  of 
Handel.  No  one  would  deny  that  the  "Hailstone 
Chorus"  sounds  better  when  a  huge  band  and  an  immense 
chorus  all  produce  the  utmost  noise  of  which  they  are 
capable.  We  all  like  hearing  a  quantity  of  voices  and  a 
Nebuchadnezzar-band  thundering  out  commonplace 
melodies,  because  a  loud  and  tuneful  noise  has  a  stimulat- 
ing effect  on  the  nerves,  and  because  we  like  our  ears 
(occasionally)  to  be  battered  into  a  hypnotized  submis- 
sion. But  we  submit  not  to  the  magic  of  the  music,  but 
to  the  overpowering  din  of  its  production.  And  when 
"the  feast  is  over  and  the  lamps  expire,"  when  we  have 


114  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

had  "the  louder  music  and  the  stronger  wine"  of  noise, 
our  hearts  steal  back  to  the  spell  of  Cynara.  .  .  . 

Soon  after  that  first  enthralling  day  at  the  Crystal 
Palace  came  the  scholarship  examination  at  Eton,  which, 
as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  produced  no  prize  whatever.  I 
spent  a  delightful  three  days  there,  basking  in  the  efful- 
gence of  Arthur,  then  just  eighteen  and  demi-godlike, 
and  came  back  to  Temple  Grove  after  a  pleasant  outing. 
And  at  the  end  of  that  term  Waterfield  retired,  and  I  went 
back  in  September  to  be  tutored  again  for  more  scholar- 
ships. 

The  new  headmaster,  Mr.  Edgar,  previously  conducted 
a  boarding-house,  and  was  hitherto  distinguished  for  a 
very  long  clerical  coat,  two  most  amiable  daughters,  a 
gold-rimmed  eyeglass  which  he  used  to  clean  by  inserting 
it  in  his  mouth  and  then  wiping  it  on  his  handkerchief, 
and  the  most  remarkable  hat  ever  seen.  The  nucleus  of 
it,  that  is  to  say  the  part  he  wore  on  his  head,  was  of  hard 
black  felt,  like  the  ordinary  bowler,  but  it  was  geometric- 
ally, quite  round,  so  that  he  could  put  any  part  of  it  any- 
where. That  I  know  because  I  have  so  often  tried  it  on 
myself.  Outside  that  circular  nucleus  came  an  extremely 
broad  black  felt  rim,  far  wider  than  that  of  the  shadiest 
straw  hat,  and  turning  upwards  on  all  sides  in  what  I  can 
only  describe  as  a  "saucy"  curve.  As  worn  by  Edgar,  it 
produced  an  impression  of  indescribable  levity,  just  as 
if  he  was,  say,  Mr.  George  Robey  posing  as  a  parson.  His 
amiability  was  unbounded,  and  his  driving-power  that 
of  a  wad  of  cotton-wool.  Indeed,  he  was  so  pleasant  that 
for  his  sake  it  became  the  fashion  to  fall  in  love  with  either 
of  his  two  daughters,  whose  mission  was  to  influence  us 
for  good.    They  gave  us  strawberries,  and  tried  to  get 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  115 

between  us  and  the  soft  spring-showers  of  their  father's 
disapproval,  like  unnecessary  umbrellas. 

Under  Edgar's  beneficent  sway,  I  managed  to  get  into 
the  most  complicated  row  that  ever  schoolboy  found  him- 
self immersed  in,  for  I  committed  three  capital  (or  rather 
fundamental)  offences  in  one  joyous  swoop.  In  the  first 
place,  I  concealed  five  shillings  of  sterling  silver  about 
my  person,  though  all  cash  derived  from  "tips"  had  to  be 
given  up  to  the  matron,  and  by  her  doled  out  as  she 
thought  suitable.  This  clandestine  millionaire  thereupon 
bribed  a  fellow-conspirator  to  break  bounds  and  go  into 
Richmond,  there  to  spend  four  of  those  shillings  in  Turk- 
ish delight,  and  keep  the  fifth  for  his  trouble.  He  got 
back  safely,  and  three  friends  had  a  wonderful  feast  in 
the  dormitory  that  night,  all  sitting  on  my  bed,  and  cloy- 
ing ourselves  and  the  bedclothes  with  that  delicious  sweet- 
meat. Unfortunately  there  was  amongst  those  midnight 
revellers  one  stomach  so  effete  and  spiritless  that  it  re- 
volted at  the  administration  of  these  cloying  lumps,  and, 
prostrated  with  sickness,  the  owner  of  it  confessed  to  an 
unusual  indulgence,  while  the  state  of  my  sheets  com- 
pleted the  evidence.  The  chain  went  back  link  by  link 
from  his  sickness  to  my  bed,  and  from  my  bed  to  the 
finding  of  the  empty  Turkish  delight  box,  and  from  the 
Turkish  delight  to  the  place  it  came  from,  and  from  the 
place  it  came  from  to  the  money  wherewith  it  was 
purchased,  so  that  I  was  left  in  as  the  unrivalled  culprit 
in  the  reconstructed  story.  But  though  I  should  have 
swooned  with  anxiety  and  probably  confessed  all,  had 
Waterfield  been  the  Sherlock  Holmes,  I  never  gave  a 
moment's  thought  to  Edgar's  unravelling.  He  said  I 
had  been  very  naughty,  and  sucked  his  eyeglass,  and 
hoped  I  wouldn't  be  naughty  again.     It  was  all  very 


116  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

polite  and  pleasant,  and  I  knew  I  had  nothing  to  fear 
from  him.  But  even  at  the  time  I  had  a  secret  misgiv- 
ing as  to  the  Judgment  Book  that  should  soon  be  opened 
at  this  page.  The  best  thing,  probably,  that  I  could 
have  done  would  have  been  to  write  home  instantly  and 
tell  my  father  all  about  it,  for  that  would  certainly  have 
seemed  to  him  the  proper  course,  and  also  he  would  have 
blown  off  part  of  his  displeasure  in  a  letter.  But  I  con- 
tinued to  procrastinate,  and  before  many  weeks  the  term 
mildly  ebbed  away.  Then  with  a  sudden  crescendo  my 
misgivings  increased,  and  it  was  a  very  unholiday-minded 
urchin  who  went  back  that  December  for  Christmas  at 
Truro. 

About  now  my  fear  of  my  father  was  at  its  perihelion, 
and  morning  by  morning  I  used  to  come  downstairs,  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  before  breakfast  time,  to  look  at  the 
post  which  had  arrived,  and  see  if  among  the  letters  for 
him  there  was  one  with  the  Mortlake  postmark  and  the 
"Temple  Grove"  inscription  on  its  flap.  Some  morning 
soon,  I  knew,  my  report  on  the  term's  work  and  my  con- 
duct generally  would  come,  and  in  it,  no  doubt,  would 
be  an  allusion  to  this  escapade.  Edgar  had  treated  it 
so  lightly  that  it  was  still  just  possible  that  he  would 
not  allude  to  it  in  his  report,  but  that  possibility  was  not 
seriously  entertained.  Morning  by  morning  I  turned  over 
the  letters,  while  my  father  was  at  early  service,  and 
then  one  day,  while  Christmas  was  nearly  on  us,  I  saw 
with  a  sinking  of  the  heart  that  the  fatal  letter  had  ar- 
rived. What  added  to  the  terror  of  it  was  that  my  father 
was  in  a  fit  of  black  depression. 

He  did  not  open  his  letters  at  breakfast,  and  afterwards 
I  went  out  into  the  garden  in  pursuit  of  an  entrancing 
game  just  invented,  that  concerned  a  large  circular  thicket  ^ 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  117 

of  escalonia  which  grew  near  the  front  door.  There  was 
an  "It,"  who  at  a  signal  started  in  pursuit  round  the 
bush  to  catch  Hugh  and  me,  and  "It"  on  this  occasion  was 
Nellie.  She  came  running  round  the  curve  of  the  bush 
and  set  us  flying  off  in  the  opposite  direction,  still'keeping, 
by  the  rule  of  the  game,  close  to  the  bush.  Then,  when 
she  had  got  us  really  moving,  she  would  double  back  with 
the  design  that  we  should  still,  running  in  that  direction, 
rush  into  her  very  arms  and  be  caught.  Full  speed  astern 
was  the  only  thing  that  could  save  us.  .  .  .  In  the  middle 
of  this  out  came  the  butler,  who  said  that  my  father 
wanted  to  see  me  at  once.  "Come  out  again  quickly," 
called  Nellie. 

My  father  was  sitting  in  his  study  with  an  open  letter 
in  his  hand.  I  think  he  gave  it  me  to  read ;  in  any  case, 
Mr.  Edgar  had  been  sufficiently  explicit,  and  in  all  my 
life  I  have  never  been  so  benumbed  with  fear.  .  .  .  Had 
I  committed  the  most  heinous  of  moral  crimes  my  father 
could  not  have  made  a  blacker  summing-up.  He  said 
that  he  would  not  see  me  among  the  rest  of  his  children. 
I  was  to  have  my  meals  alone  and  disgraced  upstairs,  and 
to  take  no  part  in  their  games  or  in  their  society,  and 
away  I  went  battered  and  yet  inwardly  rebelling  against 
this  appalling  sentence.  Then  I  think  my  mother  or 
Nellie  must  have  pleaded,  for  I  was  allowed  to  go  out 
for  a  walk  with  Nellie  alone  that  afternoon,  but  was 
segregated  from  the  others.  I  was  still  bewildered  with 
the  fierceness  of  my  father's  displeasure,  and  took  it  for 
granted  that  I  must  have  done  something  unintelligibly 
wicked,  for  I  asked  Nellie  if  she  had  ever  done  anything 
so  dreadful  as  the  crime  of  which  I  had  been  guilty.  She 
said  she  had  not,  so  I  drew  the  inference  that  her  theft 
of  dried  plants  from  my  collection  (which,  after  all,  was 


118  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

a  violation  of  one  of  the  commandments)  was  venial. 
But  it  was  precious  on  that  black  afternoon  to  receive 
sympathy  at  all,  which  certainly  she  gave  me,  and  I  did 
not  risk  the  loss  of  it  by  enquiring  about  the  comparative 
wickedness  of  the  "Affair  Turkish  delight"  and  theft. 

Then  on  Christmas  Eve,  which  I  think  must  have  been 
next  day,  came  one  of  those  unutterable  brightnesses 
which  my  father  always  had  in  store.  Again  he  sent  for 
me,  and  I  went  stiff  and  resigned,  not  knowing  whether 
there  was  not  to  be  some  renewal  of  his  anger.  .  .  .  In- 
stead, he  put  me  in  an  armchair  close  by  the  fire  and 
wrapped  a  rug  round  my  knees,  and  asked  if  I  was  quite 
comfortable,  and  shared  with  me  the  tea  that  had  been 
brought  in  for  him,  since  he  was  too  busy  to  come  into 
the  nursery  as  u^ual  and  have  it  with  the  rest  of  us.  And 
then  he  somehow  gave  me  a  glimpse,  sitting  tucked  up  by 
the  fire,  of  the  love  that  was  at  the  base  of  his  severity. 
How,  precisely,  he  conveyed  that  I  cannot  tell,  but  there 
was  no  more  doubt  about  it  than  there  was  about  the 
heaviness  of  his  displeasure. 

The  remaining  two  terms  at  Temple  Grove  passed 
along  pleasantly.  In  school  work  I  continued  my  slow 
placid  gravitation  to  the  bottom  of  my  form,  as  other 
boys  were  promoted  into  it  and  took  their  places  below 
me.  I  sank  gently  through  them  and  came  calmly  to  rest 
at  a  position  where  no  fresh  sinking  was  possible.  There 
I  went  in  for  a  little  more  sleep,  "a  little  slumber,  a 
little  folding  of  the  hands  in  sleep,"  and  resisted  with  the 
passive  force  of  mere  inertia  any  attempt  to  raise  me. 
But  probably  vital  forces  were  beginning  to  stir  again, 
for  I  got  free  of  the  successive  childish  ailments  which  had 
been  afflicting  me — colds,  sore  throats,  earaches  and  tooth- 
aches— all  of  which  no  doubt  added  their  contribution  to 


E.    F,   BENSON,    ^T.    19 


[Page  lly 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  121 

my  general  apathy,  and  also  I  woke  to  a  violent  interest 
in  friendship,  steam-engines,  and  poetry.  The  last  of 
these  I  take  to  have  been  due  to  the  fructification  of  the 
seed  sown  by  Waterfield's  readings,  and,  with  Carring- 
ton's  translation  of  the  "^neid"  to  help,  it  is  a  fact  that 
I  produced  in  an  American  cloth-covered  notebook  a 
complete  and  rhymed  and  rhythmical  rendering  of  the 
third  "^neid"  which  we  were  working  at  in  school,  with- 
out caring  one  jot  for  the  merits  of  the  original  Latin. 
What  I  wanted  to  do  was  to  compose  a  quantity  of  Eng- 
lish myself,  and  compose  it  I  did,  glorying  in  the  speed 
of  its  production,  quite  careless  about  the  faithfulness  of 
the  rendering  or  the  accuracy  of  the  grammar,  and  the 
only  merit  it  can  possibly  have  had  was  that  it  was  a 
labour  of  love.  Other  poems  dashed  off  in  the  intervals 
of  this  epic  were  connected  with  friendship,  for  I  con- 
ceived a  violent  adoration  for  a  boy  of  the  same  standing 
as  myself,  romantic  to  the  highest  degree  in  that  I  gave 
him  a  whole-hearted  devotion,  but  quite  devoid  of  mawk- 
ishness  or  sentimentality.  To  him  I  addressed  rhymed 
odes,  and  then  we  quarrelled  and  made  it  up  again,  with 
more  odes,  for  he  addressed  me  also  in  flowing  stanzas. 
Then  there  was  a  parody  of  Hood's  "Song  of  the  Shirt," 
held  to  be  a  devastatingly  comic  piece ;  and  not  less  comic 
I  suspect  was  a  blank  verse  lament  by  a  mother  over  the 
death  of  her  only  son. 

Not  very  far  behind  poetry  and  friendship  as  objects  of 
existence  came  steam-engines,  my  fellow-engineer  sitting 
next  me,  bottom  but  one  of  the  form.  We  got  illustrated 
catalogues  from  the  makers  of  models,  and  copied  and 
recopied  diagrams  of  slide-valves,  waste  pipes,  and  ec- 
centrics with  a  zeal  and  accuracy  which,  if  devoted  to 
lessons,  must  speedily  have  pulled  us  out  of  the  humble 


122  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

positions  we  so  contentedly  occupied.  A  certain  geo- 
graphical jealousy  was  mixed  up  in  this,  since,  though 
we  both  condemned  the  engines  on  the  South-Western,  on 
which  line  was  Mortlake,  as  very  poor  and  flimsy  mecha- 
nisms, he,  whose  home  was  reached  by  the  Great  Northern, 
considered  the  engines  on  that  line  far  superior  to  any- 
thing that  the  Great  Western,  which  took  me  to  and  from 
Truro,  had  to  show.  He  drew  pictures  of  the  Great 
Northern  express  engines,  and  I  retorted  with  sketches  of 
the  "Flying  Dutchman"  (11.45  a.m.  from  Paddington), 
which  went  to  Swindon  without  a  stop  and  ran  on  a  broad 
gauge,  while  the  Great  Northern  was  only  a  narrow 
gauge.  Against  that  he  set  the  fact  that  Peterborough 
was  a  mile  further  from  London  than  was  Swindon.  .  .  . 
He  was  the  happy  possessor  of  a  model  locomotive  with 
slide-valve  cylinders  and  a  waste-pipe  going  up  the  chim- 
ney, and  though  I  could  not  run  to  that,  by  dint  of  saving 
up  and  of  my  mother's  anticipation  of  my  birthday,  I 
became  possessor  of  another  model  with  a  copper  boiler 
and  a  brass  chassis  called  the  "Dart."  The  "Dart"  had 
only  oscillating  cylinders,  which,  as  all  the  world  knows, 
do  not  discharge  their  waste  steam  up  the  funnel,  but 
from  small  holes  at  their  base,  and  have  this  further  in- 
firmity, that  they  only  have  one  steam-driven  stroke  in 
each  revolution  of  their  fly-wheel,  whereas  a  slide-valve 
cylinder  has  two.  The  slide-valve  engine,  therefore,  was 
of  a  different  class  altogether  from  the  "Dart,"  but  I 
found  that  I  could  get  up  a  very  powerful  head  of  steam 
in  the  "Dart"  by  stuffing  small  pellets  of  blotting-paper 
up  the  safety-valve,  so  that  she  held  her  breath  while  her 
rival  was  letting  off  steam.  Then,  when  for  fear  of  a 
burst  boiler  I  said  the  "Dart"  was  ready,  and  turned  on 
the  tap  that  conveyed  the  steam  to  the  cylinder,  she  would 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  123 

start  off  like  mad,  and  for  a  few  yards  easily  outrun  her 
more  powerful  rival.  But  long  before  she  got  to  the 
end  of  the  open-air  cloisters  where  these  races  took  place 
she  would  be  overhauled;  and,  indeed,  the  "Dart"  usually 
failed  to  run  a  complete  course,  and  had  to  be  bottled  up 
again  to  develop  fresh  energy.  But  inferior  as  the  "Dart" 
was  in  staying  power,  it  must  be  accounted  unto  her  for 
righteousness  that  she  never  burst  when  her  safety-valve 
was  stopped  up.  There  was  also  a  stationary  engine 
(oscillating  cylinder)  belonging  to  one  of  us,  but  we  un- 
fortunately burned  its  bottom  out  by  neglecting  to  put 
any  water  in  the  boiler. 

Friendship,  engines,  and  poetry,  then,  were  the  safety- 
valves — not  choked  with  blotting-paper  like  that  of  the 
much-enduring  "Dart" — through  which  my  growing 
vitality  discharged  itself,  and  I  used  to  lie  awake  at  night, 
making  rhymes  and  phrases  and  thinking  of  the  friend  of 
my  heart,  and  trying  to  devise  some  plan  by  which  the 
"Dart"  should  generate  a  more  abundant  supply  of  steam. 
To  these  objects  of  existence,  when  the  summer  term  be- 
gan, was  added  cricket,  but  never  did  my  school  work 
arouse  one  ounce  of  latent  energy,  even  though  scholarship 
time  was  coming  near  again.  If  I  can  recollect  my  atti- 
tude rightly,  I  was  entirely  without  ambition  as  regards 
winning  a  scholarship,  in  the  sense  that  I  chose  to  devote 
myself  to  Latin  and  Greek  with  a  view  to  subsequently 
obtaining  one.  It  is  true  that  I  wanted,  rather,  to  go  to 
Eton,  and  knew  that  I  should  not  be  sent  there  unless  I 
got  a  scholarship,  but  for  that  end  I  did  not  divert  my 
energies  from  friendship,  steam-engines,  and  poetry.  I 
think  I  am  correct  in  this  recollection,  for  in  all  the  years 
that  have  passed  since  then  I  cannot  remember  ever  being 
nearly  so  much  interested  in  the  future  as  in  the  present. 


124  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

The  actual  interest  blazing  within  me  (and  there  were 
often  several  respectable  conflagrations  going  on)  has 
always  seemed  to  me  of  far  vaster  importance  than  a  re- 
moter goal.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  was  fitful  in  my  in- 
tentions, because  I  certainly  pursued  the  same  object  for 
years  together;  only  it  was  not  for  the  ultimate  achieve- 
ment that  I  pursued  it,  but  because  I  was  continuously  in- 
terested in  the  same  thing.  That  the  opposite  line  of 
action  is  the  most  effective  and  brings  the  biggest  results 
I  do  not  deny,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  think  of  the  wild 
and  fugitive  acquisitions  that  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  short- 
range  strategist.  .  .  .  But  I  am  not  defending  my  con- 
duct, in  any  case,  but  merely  describing  it. 

My  own  lack  of  effective  ambition  must  have  been  ter- 
ribly disappointing  to  the  elders  who  had  formed  and,  in 
a  material  sense,  directed  this  scholarship  campaign.  Mr. 
Edgar  and  my  father  agreed  on  a  tremendous  programme, 
which  I  was  to  carry  out,  and  the  "general  idea"  was  this. 
There  was  a  scholarship  examination  at  Marlborough  in 
June  or  perhaps  early  in  July,  in  which  there  were  of- 
fered for  competition  some  half-dozen  scholarships,  with 
a  great  plum  at  the  top  called  the  "House  Scholarship." 
The  House  Scholarship  was  worth,  I  think,  £80  a  year, 
the  next  six  £50,  and  my  father  in  a  letter  he  wrote  me 
shortly  before  the  event  said  that  he  did  not  think  the 
great  plum  was  out  of  my  reach.  His  main  desire,  I 
know,  was  that  I  should  achieve  a  distinction,  but  I  am 
also  sure  that  he  felt  I  ought  to  do  something  to  help 
towards  the  expenses  of  my  education,  since  he  believed 
that  I  was  capable  of  so  doing.  He  was  not  a  rich  man; 
hitherto  his  sons  Martin  and  Arthur  had  won  scholar- 
ships which  made  their  education  at  Winchester  and  Eton 
a  matter  of  small  expense,  and  he  did  not  mean  to  send 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  125 

me  to  Eton,  as  the  event  proved,  unless  I  got  a  scholar- 
ship, but  to  a  much  cheaper  but  in  no  way  less  excellent 
school.  I  was,  therefore,  in  the  examination  at  Marl- 
borough to  get  a  scholarship  of  some  sort — the  House 
Scholarship  for  choice — and  then,  a  few  weeks  later,  to 
go  up  for  Eton.  If  I  got  a  scholarship  there,  I  was  to  be 
sent  there  instead  of  Marlborough,  but,  failing  that,  to 
accept  the  laurels  which  Marlborough  would  no  doubt 
have  offered  me. 

So  first  I  went  off  to  Marlborough  and  competed  there. 
I  didn't  carry  off  the  House  Scholarship,  nor  did  I  carry 
off  any  other  scholarship,  nor  was  my  name  mentioned 
as  having  approached  to  distinction,  and  so  Eton  was 
given  its  chance  without  any  back-thought  at  having 
wiped  Marlborough's  eye.  Once  again,  therefore,  I  com- 
peted sadly  at  Eton,  and  Eton  had  precisely  the  same 
opinion  of  me  as  it  had  had  a  year  before.  The  plan  of 
campaign  had  completely  failed,  and  it  was  settled  that 
I  should  unconditionally  surrender  to  Marlborough.  I 
did  not  in  the  least  want  to  go  there,  because  I  wanted  to 
go  to  Eton,  as  far  as  I  wanted  anything  at  all  apart  from 
friendship,  steam-engines,  and  poetry.  Certainly  I  did 
not  want  to  remain  at  Temple  Grove  any  longer,  for  my 
greatest  friend  had  won  a  scholarship  at  Winchester,  and 
the  steam-engine  friend  was  off  to  Harrow,  and  another 
person  who  mattered  had  been  successful  at  Eton.  But 
the  idea  of  Marlborough  was  not  without  charm,  for  a 
year  before  another  friend  had  gone  there,  and  I  looked 
forward  with  a  certain  excitement  to  seeing  him  again. 
We  had  met  during  the  days  of  the  scholarship  examina- 
tion, and  he  had  aroused  in  me  some  shy  sort  of  adora- 
tion. He  had  grown  tall  and  handsome,  and  asked  con- 
descendingly about  Temple  Grove  and  the  odious  habit 


126  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

of  keeping  stag-beetles,  yet  with  a  certain  personal  in- 
terest that  he  veiled  behind  a  splendid  manly  brusqueness. 
I  wondered  whether  he  would  appreciate  a  short  ode,  but 
decided  that  he  would  not.  But  he  called  me  a  "decent 
little  kid,"  which  I  liked  as  coming  from  so  magnificent  a 
being. 

Temple  Grove  ended  very  soon  after  that  in  a  general 
ddmmerung  of  failure.  Faute  de  mieux  I  was  to  be  sent 
to  Marlborough,  and  throwing  a  Latin  dictionary  care- 
lessly into  my  locker,  I  squashed  my  gigantic  stag-beetle 
quite  flat,  and  he  was  as  Og  the  King  of  Bashan.  On  the 
last  day  of  the  term  I  played  cricket  against  a  team  of 
Old  Templegrovians  and  lost  the  match  by  failing  to 
hold  the  easiest  catch  ever  spooned  up  amid  a  wildly 
excited  circle  of  contemporaries,  having  previously  got 
out  first  ball  (or  second).  But  Mr.  Edgar  was  kind,  and 
said  that  it  didn't  matter,  though  his  frenzied  sucking  of 
his  eyeglass  and  his  dropping  it  into  my  lemonade  in- 
dicated tact  rather  than  sincerity. 

So  the  poor  ugly  duckling  who  had  failed  to  accomplish 
anything  went  home  to  its  family  of  swans,  who,  daz- 
zlingly  white,  cut  circles  in  the  air  above  it  on  the  pinions 
of  their  various  accomplishments.  There  was  Arthur, 
now  nineteen,  who  had  got  an  Eton  scholarship  at  King's 
College,  Cambridge,  and  was  going  there  in  October, 
whose  scholastic  success  was  only  equalled  by  his  volleys 
with  an  Eton  football  and  his  wholly  untakeable  service 
at  lawn-tennis.  He  could  do  everything  with  ease,  was 
listened  to  by  my  father  with  attention  when  he  talked, 
and  yet  remained  unconscious  of  his  sovereignty,  and  was 
altogether  kind  and  faintly  pitiful  to  my  all-round  short- 
comings.   There  was  Nellie,  who  annexed  every  distinc- 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  127 

tion  that  could  be  annexed  at  the  Truro  High  School,  ex- 
cept when  Maggie  butted  up  against  her,  who  could  play 
Schumann's  first  novelette  and  had  been  pronounced  to 
have  a  "veiled"  contralto  voice  in  which  she  sang  melo- 
dies by  Marzials  and  Molloy,  and  who,  on  the  occasion 
of  Redruth  High  School  or  some  inferior  congregation  of 
females  challenging  Truro  High  School  for  a  match  at 
cricket,  bowled  out  the  entire  side  of  those  misguided 
young  ladies  with  lobs  that  cut  the  daisies  from  their 
stalks  and  were  admired  even  by  the  vanquished  for  their 
paralyzing  swiftness.  Then  there  was  Maggie,  who  took 
the  rest  of  the  prizes  at  the  High  School  and  painted 
ravishly  not  only  in  water-colours,  but  in  oils,  with  Mc- 
Guilp  (was  it*?)  as  a  medium,  and  tubes  that  squirtea 
rainbows  on  to  her  palette.  She  was  not  athletic,  but 
she  had  the  great  physical  distinction  of  having  been 
knocked  down  by  a  cow  whose  calf  had  been  taken  from 
her,  and  lying  prone  on  the  ground  held  on  to  the  animal's 
horns  and  with  perfect  calmness  continued  to  scream 
loudly  and  serenely  until  rescued  by  Parker  the  butler. 
After  these  dazzling  swans  there  came  the  ugly  duckling, 
who  had  failed  in  games  and  in  scholarship,  who  had 
not  achieved  the  smallest  intellectual  distinction,  but  who 
in  some  queer  manner  of  his  own  was  quite  as  independ- 
ent as  any  of  the  swans. 

And,  finally,  there  was  Hugh,  on  whom  at  this  time 
my  father's  hopes  were  centred,  for  I  think  he  regarded 
him  as  the  one  who  was  going  to  take  Martin's  place. 
If  he  listened  with  respect  to  Arthur,  he  hung  on  Hugh, 
who,  for  independence,  for  knowing  what  he  wanted,  and 
for  a  perfectly  fearless  disregard  of  other  people's  opin- 
ions, was,  for  a  boy  of  nine,  wholly  unique.  If  his  reason 
was  convinced,  he  would  adopt  a  plan  different  from  the 


128  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

one  he  had  chosen,  but  it  was  necessary  to  convince  him 
first,  and  no  amount  of  bawling  or  insistence  would  make 
him  alter  his  mind  if  he  did  not  agree.  He  adored  Beth, 
but  if  he  chose  to  walk  through  puddles,  neither  affection 
for  her,  nor  respect  for  her  authority,  would  make  him 
cease  to  do  so,  unless  she  convinced  him  of  the  greater 
suitability  of  the  dry  places.  He  was  so  dreadfully  funny 
that  nobody  could  possibly  be  angry  with  him  for  long, 
and  when  he  had  reduced  a  sister,  who  was  teaching  him 
his  lessons,  to  distraction  by  his  disobediences  and  inat- 
tention, he  would  anticipate  the  final  threat  the  moment 
before  it  came,  and,  with  shut  eyes  and  a  face  inexpressi- 
bly solemn,  would  chant,  "Mamma  shall  be  told  I"  Arthur 
alone  out  of  us  all  could  deal  with  him.  Once,  when  in 
some  theatrical  rehearsal,  Hugh,  with  soft  paper  round  a 
comb,  had  to  supply  orchestral  accompaniment  to  the 
piano,  and  wouldn't  stop,  Arthur  observed  in  an  awful 
voice,  "If  the  orchestra  isn't  quiet,  it  shall  be  sent  out  of 
the  room  with  several  hard  slaps."  .  .  .  Hugh  had  a 
habit,  when  things  were  breezy,  of  writing  insulting  re- 
marks in  round  hand  on  a  piece  of  paper,  and  then  doub- 
ling it  up  and  throwing  it  at  the  object  of  his  scorn,  and 
while  you  were  reading  it  he  ran  away.  A  further  de- 
velopment of  this  was  that,  when  pursuit  was  hot  behind 
him,  he  would  pull  a  small  ball  of  paper  out  of  his 
pocket  and  surreptitiously  drop  it,  as  if  fearing  to  be 
caught  with  it.  Naturally,  the  pursuer  stopped  to  smooth 
out  the  paper  and  see  what  fresh  insult  was  recorded  there, 
and  would  find  a  perfectly  blank  half-sheet.  But  by  that 
time  Hugh  would  be  at  the  top  end  of  the  garden  path 
and  have  had  time  to  conceal  himself  anywhere.  Clad 
in  pasteboard  armour,  covered  with  silver  paper,  with 
a  shield  and  a  helmet  and  greaves,  he  would  hide  in  the 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  129 

shrubbery  and  hurl  paper  lances  at  you.  Then  a  hot  pur- 
suit followed,  until  one  of  the  greaves  dropped  off,  and, 
still  flying,  he  would  pant  out  "Pax,  until  I've  put  on 
my  greave  again!"  He  and  I  lived  in  a  perpetual  high- 
tension  atmosphere  of  violent  quarrels,  swift  reconcilia- 
tions, and  indissoluble  alliances  with  secret  signs  and 
mysteries  to  which  even  Maggie  was  not  admitted.  We 
had  a  cypher  language  of  our  own  which  consisted  in 
substituting  for  each  vowel  the  one  that  came  next  in 
the  alphabet;  it  was  easy  to  write,  but  difficult  to  speak 
and  even  more  difficult  to  understand  when  spoken. 
What  we  communicated  to  each  other  in  it  I  have  no  con- 
ception, nor  can  I  now  remember  the  aims  and  objects  of 
the  mystic  club  called  "Mr.  Paido."  One  of  the  rites 
consisted  in  walking  in  the  garden  with  bare  feet,  which, 
after  all,  was  an  adventure  in  itself. 

The  great  excitement  of  this  summer  holiday,  after 
which  I  was  to  go  to  Marlborough,  was  an  expedition  to 
Switzerland.  All  that  any  of  us  knew  about  Switzerland 
was  a  remarkable  picture  that  hung  in  the  nursery  in 
which  rows  of  dazzling  summits  crowned  cerulean  lakes. 
Above  that  panoramic  view,  in  which  the  Jungfrau  and 
Mont  Blanc  somehow  appeared  together,  were  little  vi- 
gnettes, one  of  a  Swiss  chalet,  one  of  the  Staubbach,  one 
of  the  castle  at  Chillon.  We  journeyed  via  Southamp- 
ton and  Havre,  five  children,  Beth,  my  father  and  mother, 
and  sat  upright  in  a  second-class  carriage  all  the  way  from 
Paris  to  Berne,  by  what  route  I  have  no  idea.  Our  ob- 
jective was  a  village  called  Gimmelwald,  a  few  miles 
from  Murren,  and  we  spent  a  day  and  a  night  at  Berne, 
and  from  Berne,  on  the  terrace  in  front  of  the  church, 
I  had  my  first  glimpse  of  snow  mountains.  Perhaps 
because  I  had  been  sitting  bolt  upright  all  night,  perhaps 


130  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

because  I  had  thought  that  the  brilliant  blues  and  daz- 
zling whites  of  the  pictures  in  the  nursery  would  be  col- 
lectively unveiled  on  an  enormous  scale,  I  was  more  dis- 
appointed than  words  can  fairly  convey.  Low  on  the 
horizon  were  a  few  greyish  jagged  hills  beset  with  stream- 
ers of  mist,  and  that  was  all.  Nellie  drew  a  long  breath 
and  said,  "Oh,  isn't  it  wonderful!"  and  I  labelled  her 
the  most  consummate  hypocrite. 

Next  morning  we  started  again,  and  came  out  on  the 
lake  of  Thun,  the  shores  of  which  we  traversed  in  some 
sort  of  train  like  an  omnibus,  with  an  open  top,  and  in 
due  proportion  to  the  bitterness  of  the  disappointment  at 
Berne  came  that  day's  rapture.  We  passed  below  the 
Niesen,  which  wore  a  snow-cap,  and  my  mother  told  us 
that  the  Niesen  was  nothing  particular.  Summits  gleamed 
from  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  and  they  were  nothing 
particular;  but  oh  I  for  the  lake  itself,  while  we  awaited 
other  incredible  developments.  It  was  bluer  than  the 
picture  in  the  nursery,  and  it  was  trimmed  with  a  trans- 
lucent bottle-green  that  showed  the  shallow  water,  and 
sharp  as  the  edge  of  a  riband  laid  against  it  came  that 
deep  clear  blue.  From  Interlaken  we  proceeded  in  car- 
riages, between  meadows  tall  with  gentians,  and  over 
them  there  skimmed  Apollo  butterflies  with  orange  spots 
(XI  each  under-wing,  and  Camberwell  Beauties  no  less 
(foreign  variety,  with  a  yellow  instead  of  a  white  border 
to  their  wings).  And  then  we  turned  a  corner  (I  was  on 
the  front  seat),  and  Nellie  opposite  said,  "Oh!"  and  I 
thought  she  had  been  a  hypocrite  again  and  didn't  look 
round,  because  I  was  observing  a  pale  clouded  yellow. 
And  then  she  said,  "Oh,  look!"  and  I  was  kind  enough 
to  forgive  her  her  hypocrisies  and  look,  and  there,  straight 
in  front,  was  the  Jungfrau,  and  the  holy  maiden  was 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  131 

unveiled  white  and  tall  above  her  skirt  of  dark  pine 
woods,  and  my  heart  went  out  to  the  snow  mountains, 
and  has  never  yet  come  back.  Much  did  I  suffer  at  their 
lovely  hands  during  the  next  ten  years,  for  that  same 
Jungfrau  treated  me  to  an  excruciating  climb  of  many 
hours  through  soft  snow;  and  the  Matterhorn  kept  his 
worshipper  interminably  standing  with  one  foot  planted 
on  exiguous  icy  steps  as  each  was  hewn  out  by  the  leading 
guide  and  the  fragments  went  clinking  down  the  preci- 
pice; and  the  Rothorn  (Zienal)  gave  me  a  very  awkward 
moment  on  the  edge  of  a  bergschrund;  and  the  Piz  Palu 
came  within  an  ace  of  causing  Hugh  to  die  of  syncope 
owing  to  the  icy  wind  with  which  she  enwrapped  her 
arete,  and  the  Matterhorn  for  the  second  time  threw  a 
large  quantity  of  boulders  at  me  because  I  inconspicuously 
crossed  her  eastern  face  on  my  way  towards  the  Theodul 
Pass;  and  the  Dent  Blanche  directed  so  damnable  a  bliz- 
zard at  me  that  I  could  not  make  her  further  acquaint- 
ance. But,  as  David  said,  "though  all  these  things  were 
done  against  me,"  yet  has  my  heart  never  returned  to  me 
from  the  keeping  of  the  great  mountains,  nor  yet  from 
the  keeping  of  the  sea  which  I  first  saw  at  Skegness,  and 
if  I  could  choose  the  manner  of  my  death  it  would  be 
that  I  should,  above  some  eminent  ice-wall,  fall  asleep 
in  the  immaculate  purity  of  starlit  frost,  or  sink  in  the 
sea-caves  round  about  the  island  of  Capri,  and,  as  I 
sank,  see  from  far  below  the  glitter  of  the  southern  sun 
above  me  in  the  clear  dusk  of  deep  waters.  ...  If  God 
pleases,  I  will  be  frozen  or  drowned  when  the  time  comes 
for  me  to  have  done  with  this  body  of  mine.  I  do  not 
covet  for  its  last  moment  a  comfortable  bed,  and  pyjamas, 
and  a  medicine  bottle  on  the  washstand.  .  .  .  Not  that 
it  matters;  only  I  should  like  the  other  mode  of  passage. 


132  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

We  passed  the  Staubbach  somewhere  near  Lauter- 
brunnen  and  came  in  the  hour  of  sunset  to  the  little  inn 
at  Gimmelwald.  And  then  there  was  no  more  spirit  left 
in  me,  for  Eiger  and  Monck  and  Jungfrau  and  Ebneflu 
and  Silberhorn  were  aflame  with  the  salute  of  the  evening. 
Maggie  sat  down  to  sketch,  and  was  prodigal  of  rose- 
madder;  but  whereas  she  put  rose-madder  on  to  a  draw- 
ing-block, it  was  the  sun  that  dyed  the  snows.  And  we 
had  bilberries  and  cream  at  dinner,  and  cows  went  home, 
swinging  bronze  bells  as  they  cropped  a  wayside  morsel ; 
and  there  was  a  noise  of  falling  torrents  and  a  scent  of 
pasturage,  and  the  exitement  of  being  "abroad"  and  the 
knowledge  that  the  Jungfrau  would  be  there  in  the  morn- 
ing. 

I  wish  I  could  estimate  even  in  the  roughest  manner 
the  amount  of  luggage  which  accompanied  that  month 
in  Switzerland.  My  father  had  a  heavy  box  of  books 
and  manuscript,  for  he  was  working,  then  as  always,  when 
he  saw  leisure  ahead  of  him,  on  his  Life  of  St.  Cyprian^ 
which  he  began  at  Wellington  and  completed  only  shortly 
before  his  death.  Cyprian  alone  took  up  a  large  box,  and, 
apart  from  that  in  the  way  of  books,  there  must  have 
been  a  great  library.  There  were  certainly  half  a  dozen 
copies  of  Shakespeare,  because  of  an  evening  after  din- 
ner we  read  Shakespeare  aloud,  each  taking  a  character; 
and  there  was  a  quantity  of  Dickens,  which  my  mother 
read  to  us  before  dinner.  Then  each  of  us  had  some  kind 
of  a  holiday  task,  except  Arthur.  Nellie  had  something 
about  logic,  and  Maggie  had  her  political  economy,  and 
I  had  a  large  Latin  dictionary  and  a  large  Greek  diction- 
ary to  elucidate  Virgil  and  the  "Medea"  of  Euripides, 
and  Hugh  had,  at  any  rate,  a  Latin  grammar  and  a 
volume  called  "Nuces,"  which  means  "nuts,"  and  hard 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  133 

they  were  for  him  to  crack.  Everybody,  individually, 
had  a  Bible  and  prayer-book  and  hymn-book,  and  I  am 
sure  there  must  have  been  some  Sunday  books  as  well. 
Then  the  materials  for  "collections"  came  along  also: 
there  were  presses  for  each  of  us  in  which  to  receive  and 
to  dry  the  flowers  we  picked,  and  there  were  killing  bottles 
for  butterflies  (not  chloroform  and  oxalic  acid  any  more) 
containing  cyanide  of  potassium,  which  killed  after  you 
had  screwed  the  lid  on,  and  when  you  took  it  off  next 
morning,  they  were  all  dead  bodies,  like  Sennacherib's 
hosts;  and  setting  boards  for  the  laying  out  of  the  slain, 
and  large  cork-lined  boxes  for  their  exhibition,  and 
packets  of  pins  for  their  impalement,  and  many  butterfly 
nets  for  their  original  capture.  Then  there  were  packs 
of  cards  for  diversion,  and  my  mother  had  a  great  medi- 
cine-chest in  case  of  illness.  There  were  cool  clothes  for 
all  of  us  in  the  blaze  of  the  Alpine  day,  and  warm  clothes 
for  the  chill  of  the  Alpine  evenings;  and  each  of  us  had 
a  paint-box  and  a  "Winsor  and  Newton"  block,  and 
Beth  never  moved  without  rolls  of  flannel  and  mustard 
plasters  and  cylinders  of  cotton-wool.  Each  one  of  us 
had  an  alpen-stock  and  huge  hob-nailed  boots,  and 
when  you  consider  that  there  were  eight  persons,  each 
marvellously  equipped  for  mental,  physical,  and  artistic 
enterprises,  you  must  only  wonder  that  some  mode  of 
conveyance,  if  not  all,  was  not  fit  to  bear  the  strain  of 
this  transportation.  But  arrive  at  Gimmelwald  we  did, 
and  while  Maggie  was  prodigal  with  rose-madder  this 
train  of  equipment  somehow  got  inside  the  inn.  Beth 
swooped  on  her  flannel  and  her  mustard  plasters,  my 
father  established  his  Cyprian  library  in  our  sitting-room, 
my  mother  clutched  her  medicine-chest,  and  there  was 
left  an  enormous  pile  of  books,  apparatus  for  botany, 


134  OUR  FAINIILY  AFFAIRS 

climbing,  and  entomology,  which  remained  in  a  passage 
and  was  gradually  broken  up  between  its  owners.  I  think 
that  the  last  pressing-case  for  dried  flowers,  the  last  kill- 
ing-bottle for  the  extinction  of  butterflies,  can  hardly  have 
been  clawed  from  that  common  heap  before  it  was  time 
to  pack  it  all  up  again. 

Of  that  month  certain  indelibly  vivid  impressions  re- 
main. One  was  the  ascent  of  the  Schilthorn,  popularly 
supposed  to  be  10,000  (ten  thousand)  feet  in  height,  and 
to  possess  the  witching  attraction  of  owning  "everlasting" 
snow.  It  was  not,  unless  it  has  abbreviated  itself  very 
much  since,  anything  near  ten  thousand  feet  high,  and, 
as  for  the  everlasting  snow,  we  climbed  through  torrid 
uplands  and  finished  by  a  mild  rocky  ascent  without  ever 
setting  foot  on  any  snow  perishable  or  everlasting.  True, 
there  were  patches  of  it  on  the  northern  face,  and  per- 
haps those  may  be  there  still.  But  it  was  an  enchanting 
expedition,  for  we  carried  our  alpen-stocks  and  the  guide 
had  a  rope  round  his  shoulders,  and  we  started  at  five 
in  the  morning.  My  father  had  a  guide-book  with  a 
Schilthorn  panorama,  and  we  sat  on  the  top  and  rejoiced 
in  the  fact  that  we  were  ten  thousand  feet  up  in  the 
air  and  that  small  quantities  of  everlasting  snow  were 
below  us,  and  we  followed  his  guiding  finger  as  he  pointed 
out  the  jewels  in  the  crown  of  mountains  that  surrounded 
us.  .  .  .  We  passed  through  Murren  on  the  way  down, 
and  there  saw  English  people  playing  lawn-tennis  on  one 
of  the  hotel  courts,  and  never  shall  I  forget  my  father's 
upraised  eyebrows  and  mouth  of  scorn  as  he  said,  "Fancy, 
playing  lawn-tennis  in  sight  of  the  Jungfrau !" 

But  if  there  was  some  subtle  profanity  in  playing  lawn- 
tennis  in  sight  of  the  Jungfrau,  I  thought  it  much  more 
blasphemous  to  study  "Medea"  and  the  "iEneid"  in  the 


THE  DUNCE'S  PROGRESS  135 

same  sacred  presence.  I  had  a  considerable  spell  of  these, 
because  it  had  been  discovered  that,  although  I  was  going 
to  Marlborough  without  a  scholarship,  there  was  yet 
another  of  those  odious  competitions  which  I  could  enter 
for  after  I  had  got  there.  I  had  fondly  thought  that 
after  this  trinity  of  failures  I  had  thoroughly  be-dunced 
myself  and  need  make  no  more  efforts,  but  it  appeared 
that  I  was  wholly  mistaken,  for  next  December  there 
would  be  a  chance  of  going  in  for  Foundation  Scholar- 
ships at  my  new  school,  and  in  that  there  would  be  less 
competition,  for  they  were  open  only  to  sons  of  clergy- 
men. So,  after  a  few  days'  holiday,  out  came  the  Greek 
dictionary  and  the  Latin  dictionary  and  the  "Medea" 
and  the  "iEneid,"  and  I  had  a  couple  of  hours  every 
morning  under  my  father's  tuition.  I  think  he  was  very 
strict  with  me,  for  he  still  believed  in  the  existence  of 
my  brains,  and  was  determined  that  I  should  use  them. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  get  good  results  from  a  small  boy 
unless  somehow  interest  is  kindled,  and  there  was  often 
despair  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  and  resentful  gloom 
on  the  part  of  the  taught.  Things  came  to  a  climax  on 
one  particular  wet  morning,  when  we  were  all  seated  in 
the  sitting-room,  Nellie  with  her  logic,  and  Maggie  with 
her  political  economy,  and  Hugh  going  swimmingly  with 
his  "nuces"  under  my  mother's  instructions.  One  by  one 
they  all  finished  their  tasks,  and  there  was  I  left  with  a 
chorus  in  the  "Medea"  which  I  could  not  translate  at 
all,  getting  more  muddled  and  hopeless  every  minute, 
and  making  fresh  mistakes  as  we  went  over  it  again,  and 
my  father  getting  exasperated  with  my  stupidity.  Stupid 
I  was,  but  my  chief  ailment  that  morning  was  that  I  was 
frightened  and  addled  and  dazed  with  his  displeasure. 
Right  up  till  lunch  time  was  I  kept  at  my  task  that  day, 


136  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

and  in  the  afternoon  there  was  a  walk  in  the  rain,  and  I 
got  into  some  further  disgrace  for  hitting  Hugh  with  my 
umbrella  in  mere  retaliation.  I  was  "done  to  a  turn"  by 
this  time,  and  I  think  my  mother  must  have  pointed  that 
out,  for  next  morning,  anyhow,  instead  of  that  just  and 
terrible  thunder-cloud,  when  I  brought  up  the  weary 
chorus  again  for  retranslation,  my  father  was  enchant- 
ingly  encouraging,  and  slipped  in  little  corrections  when 
I  made  mistakes,  as  if  I  had  corrected  myself.  There  was 
no  allusion  to  yesterday's  trouble,  and  under  his  approval 
my  wits  rallied  themselves,  and  at  the  end  he  shut  up  the 
book  with  a  delicious  smile  and  told  me  that  it  was  the 
best  lesson  I  had  ever  brought  him.  .  .  • 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  WIDENING   HORIZONS 


MY  father  took  me  in  person  to  Marlborough.  I  did 
not  much  relish  that,  since  I  thought,  with  private 
school  ideas  still  hanging  about  me,  that  it  would  be  a 
handicap  to  be  known  as  the  son  of  a  man  who  wore  black 
cloth  gaiters,  an  apron,  and  a  hat  with  strings  at  the  side. 
That  was  all  very  well  in  Cornwall,  where  he  was  bishop, 
but  here  I  should  have  preferred  a  parent  who  looked  like 
other  parents.  He  seemed  to  have  no  consciousness  of 
being  unusually  dressed  himself,  and  one  incident  in  the 
few  hours  he  stayed  much  impressed  itself  on  me,  for  he 
came  with  me  into  some  class-room  or  other  where  a  lot 
of  boys  were  sitting,  talking  and  whistling,  with  their 
caps  on.  My  father  took  off  his  hat  when  he  entered 
(which  again  I  thought  showed  a  slight  want  of  knowl- 
edge), and  then,  to  my  surprise,  every  boy  in  the  place 
did  the  same.  The  whistling  ceased,  nobody  laughed, 
and  I  went  out  again  rather  proud  of  him.  He  seemed  to 
have  done  the  right  thing.  .  .  . 

Outside  the  College  buildings  there  were  two  or 
three  small  boarding-houses  and  three  large  ones  contain- 
ing forty  to  fifty  boys  each,  into  one  of  which  I  should 
have  gone  if  I  had  got  the  famous  "House  Scholarship." 
As  it  was,  I  was  put  into  B  House,  a  square  brick  build- 
ing of  three  stories,  each  of  which  constituted  an  in- 
college  house.    The  edifice  itself  was  like  a  penitentiary : 

137 


138  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

a  big  open  space  from  the  skylight  to  the  basement  occu- 
pied the  centre  of  it,  with  two  class-rooms  and  a  boot- 
room  in  the  basement.  Round  this  open  space  ran  three 
floors  of  stone  passages,  connected  by  stone  stairs;  these 
passages  were  lit  by  arches  opening  on  to  the  central  space, 
and  defended  from  it  by  tall  iron  bars ;  and  out  of  these 
three  tiers  of  passages  opened  four  dormitories  on  each 
floor,  a  class-room,  one  bathroom  with  three  baths,  a 
sitting  and  bedroom  belonging  to  the  house-master  of  each 
house,  with  corresponding  accommodation  for  a  second 
house-master  at  the  opposite  comer,  and  a  study  next  to 
the  bathroom  for  the  head  of  the  house.  Ten  to  fifteen 
boys  slept  in  each  of  these  dormitories,  which  were  lit  by 
day  from  three  or  four  small  windows,  and  for  purposes 
of  going  to  bed  and  getting  up  in  the  dark  from  one  small 
gas-jet.  Down  the  centre  of  each  dormitory  stood  a 
board  punctuated  with  basins,  one  for  each  boy,  and  fur- 
nished with  a  corresponding  number  of  crockery  mugs  to 
hold  water  for  tooth-washing.  A  narrow  shelf  ran  round 
the  room  above  the  beds,  where  brushes  and  combs  were 
kept.  There  was  a  chest  of  drawers  underneath  the  gas- 
jet  belonging  to  the  prefect  of  the  dormitory,  and  he  had 
a  chair  by  his  bedside  where  he  could  put  his  clothes.  As 
half  the  beds  were  directly  below  the  windows,  the  oc- 
cupants naturally  objected  to  having  their  immediate 
windows  open  during  inclemencies,  so  on  cold  or  rainy 
nights  they  were  all  shut.  There  were  no  partitions  be- 
tween the  beds;  all  operations  were  conducted  in  whole- 
some publicity,  and  there  was  no  objection  to  anybody 
saying  his  prayers.  Each  dormitory  was  known  by  a 
letter  of  the  alphabet;  the  houses  were  called  B  i,  B  2, 
B  3,  and  every  boy  had  his  school  number.  Thus  my  dry 
description  was  Benson,  E.  F.,  234,  B  1,  L. 


THE  WIDENIN.G  HORIZONS         139 

The  day  was  a  strenuous  one.  A  clanging  bell  per- 
ambulating the  passages  murdered  sleep  at  half-past  six, 
and  there  was  chapel  at  seven.  If  you  chose  to  get  up 
at  half-past  six,  you  had  time  for  a  cup  of  water-cocoa  on 
the  ground  floor  and  for  a  bath.  Usually  you  got  up  on 
the  first  sound  of  chapel-bell  at  6 150,  and,  cocoa-less  and 
with  bootlaces  flying,  sped  down  the  stairs  and  across  the 
court  to  get  within  the  gates  outside  chapel  before  a  single 
fateful  stroke  of  the  bell  announced  that  you  were  late. 
By  the  gate  were  stationed  two  masters  who  on  the  stroke 
put  their  arms  across  the  entrance  and  prevented  further 
ingress.  If  there  were  many  boys  outside  at  that  critical 
moment  they  used  to  charge  the  masters  and  get  in  some- 
how, bearing  down  all  opposition,  and  it  was  delightful 
on  such  occasions  to  be  safely  and  legitimately  inside  and 
see  a  sort  of  football  scrimmage  going  on.  Usually,  how- 
ever, there  would  only  be  a  few  stragglers,  who  attempted 
no  violence.  Punishments  for  being  late  varied:  on  the 
first  occasion  there  was  no  penalty,  but  if  you  persevered 
in  tardiness,  the  penalties  became  unpleasantly  heavy. 
But  if  you  were  late,  you  could  at  least  do  up  your  boot- 
laces and  get  a  cup  of  cocoa. 

There  was  a  lesson  from  about  a  quarter-past  seven  on 
the  conclusion  of  chapel  till  a  quarter-past  eight.  A 
wholly  insufficient  breakfast  was  then  provided,  consist- 
ing of  tea  ready  mixed  out  of  a  tin  can,  a  circular  inch 
of  butter,  and  bread;  on  certain  mornings  there  was  por- 
ridge. If  you  wanted  anything  beyond  this  fare,  you  had 
to  buy  it  yourself  at  school-shop.  But  you  took  your  pri- 
vate milk-jug  in  to  breakfast  and  were  given,  I  suppose, 
about  a  quarter  of  a  pint  of  milk,  which  you  kept  for  a 
purpose.  During  the  morning  there  were  two  hours' 
school  and  one  hour's  preparation  and  an  hour  and  a  half 


140  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

leisure.  There  was  meat  and  pudding  for  dinner  at  half- 
past  one,  and  thereafter  the  total  provender  provided  was 
another  inch  of  butter,  with  tea  and  bread,  at  six,  and 
supper  consisting  of  hard  biscuits,  a  piece  of  cheese,  and  a 
glass  of  beer  after  evening  chapel,  about  8.45.  I  had 
an  allowance,  originally,  of  sixpence  a  week,  which  was 
soon  increased  to  a  shilling;  and,  quite  rightly,  the  whole 
of  that  used  to  be  spent  in  getting  things  to  eat.  These 
were  consumed  at  that  daily  love-feast  called  "brewing," 
which  was  a  joyful  affair  and  merits  its  own  paragraph. 

"Brewing"  was  a  social  function;  you  brewed  in  your 
class-room  with  your  friend,  for  everybody  had  a  friend 
of  some  kind,  and  nobody  brewed  alone.  This  function 
took  place  at  varying  hours  in  the  afternoon,  as  dictated 
by  the  hours  of  school,  and  rendered  unnecessary  the 
scanty  affair  called  "tea"  provided  by  the  college  com- 
missariat. In  fact,  as  a  rule,  nobody  went  into  college  tea 
at  all,  so  bloated  was  he  with  liquid  when  poor,  and 
with  liquid  mixed  with  cake  when  rich.  Brewing  had 
never  anything  to  do  with  beer,  for  in  winter  you  brewed 
tea  or  coffee,  and  in  summer  lemonade  in  large  earthen- 
ware bowls,  with  straws  or  india-rubber  pipes  to  drink  it 
from.  The  tea  itself  you  certainly  brought  from  home 
(and  when  that  was  used  up  Beth  would  send  me  some 
more),  sometimes  you  had  sugar,  and  sometimes  you 
hadn't,  and  the  milk  was  provided,  as  aforesaid,  by  the 
college  commissariat,  and  thus  the  whole  of  your  money 
could  be  devoted  to  cake.  And  there  we  sat  each  fellow 
by  his  friend,  when  football  was  over,  with  kettles  in- 
terminably filled  at  the  college  pump,  and  put  to  boil  on 
public  gas-stoves,  jealously  watched  in  turn  by  you  or 
your  friend,  and  the  fresh  kettle-full  of  water  was  poured 
on  the  tea-leaves,  and  the  last  crumb  of  cake  was  de- 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        141 

voured,  and  the  last  drop  of  milk  was  coaxed  out  of  the 
jug,  and  you  enjoyed  the  full  fellowship  of  not  quite 
enough  to  eat,  scrupulously  divided,  and  the  romance  of 
being  fourteen  or  fifteen  thickened  and  fructified.  You 
quarrelled  and  made  it  up,  and  indeed  there  was  very 
little  quarrelling,  and  you  looked  round  the  class-room, 
and  intrigued  and  wondered  and  loved,  and  spliced  a 
broken  squash-racket,  and  uncurled  the  interminable  folds 
of  felt  of  a  burst  fives-ball,  down  to  the  heart  of  cork 
that  lay  in  the  centre  of  it,  and  made  fresh  plans.  Then 
if  you  were  very  prudent  you  washed  out  the  teapot  and 
the  cups  and  saucers,  and  especially  the  milk-jug,  because 
if  you  didn't,  it  stank  appallingly  next  morning,  and  in 
the  morning  you  could  not  get  any  hot  water.  Cold  water 
was  of  no  use  with  a  milk-jug:  it  had  to  be  rinsed  with  hot 
water,  unless  you  wanted  to  find  dreadful  curds  when, 
next  day,  the  fresh  milk  was  poured  into  it.  Bloated 
with  tea  you  went  to  chapel  again,  and  didn't  want  any 
beer  or  cheese,  and  wished  it  was  brewing-time  again. 
Then  there  was  an  hour's  preparation  in  the  house  class- 
room, and  if  you  had  not  had  a  bath  in  the  morning 
very  likely  you  had  one  at  night,  and  the  other  boys 
drifted  into  your  dormitory  where  already  you  lay  warm 
and  sleepy  in  bed,  and  perhaps  the  head  of  the  house  gave 
you  a  piece  of  hot  buttered  toast,  as  he  came  in,  for  pre- 
fects had  the  privilege  of  taking  bread  and  butter  away 
from  hall,  and  you  ate  it  sumptuously  and  wiped  your 
greasy  hands  on  the  bedclothes.  If  there  was  a  boy  with 
the  gift  of  narrative  in  the  dormitory,  he  often  told  a 
story  as  soon  as  lights  were  put  out  (or  rather  the  one 
gas-jet)  until  he  or  his  hearers  got  sleepy,  and  the  story 
faded  into  silence.    A  slippered  footstep  would  be  heard 


142  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

along  the  passage,  and  the  house-master,  candle  in  hand, 
made  his  round  of  the  dormitories.  .  .  . 

In  each  dormitory  there  was  a  big  boy,  not  in  sixth 
form,  who  was  captain  of  the  dormitory,  and  a  prefect 
in  sixth  form.  On  the  character  of  these  and  the  two  or 
three  other  big  fellows  depended  the  character  of  their 
dormitory.  Bullying,  as  far  as  I  know,  was  non-existent; 
but  in  all  other  respects,  they  had  far  more  power  for 
good  or  ill  in  their  hands  than  the  whole  staff  of  masters 
put  together,  for  the  house-master  went  his  rounds  soon 
after  lights  were  put  out,  and  it  was  pretty  certain  that 
he  would  not  intrude  again.  Even  if  he  should  take  it 
into  his  head  to  come  out  of  his  rooms  a  second  time,  his 
approach  could  be  signalled  by  the  boy  who  occupied  the 
bed  opposite  the  door,  which  was  always  left  open;  he 
would  be  told  to  "keep  cave,"  and  stories  or  bolster- 
iights  or  any  other  irregularity  could  safely  be  committed, 
for  the  young  Brangaene  from  the  watch-tower  of  a  bed 
would  whisper,  "cave,"  and  the  white-robed  had  plenty 
of  time  to  steal  back  to  their  nests  from  wherever  they 
might  be  and  be  plunged  in  profound  sleep  before  the 
master  traversed  the  passage.  Practically,  then,  there 
was  no  superior  supervision;  the  elder  boys  and  prefects 
of  dormitories  moulded  the  material  committed  to  their 
charge  as  they  chose,  and  certainly  there  was  no  secret 
detective-work  or  encouragement  of  talebearers  on  the 
part  of  the  masters.  The  decency,  the  morality,  the  dis- 
cipline that  result  from  such  a  system,  where  these  virtues 
are  the  result  of  public  opinion,  are  of  far  more  robust 
quality  than  if  they  are  merely  the  forced  product  of  the 
fear  of  detection.  With  the  hideous  ingenuity  that  is 
peculiarly  characteristic  of  boys,  it  would  have  been 
perfectly  easy  to  have  evaded  detection,  if  the  knowledge 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        143 

that  there  was  secret  detective-work  going  on  on  the  part 
of  masters  had  challenged  our  wits  and  roused  us  to  in- 
vention for  the  sake  alone  of  "scoring  off"  masters.  As 
it  was,  a  well-behaved  dormitory  behaved  well  because 
it  was  "bad  form"  to  behave  otherwise,  while  a  dormitory 
naturally  ill-behaved,  would  have  invented  some  system 
of  sentries  which  would  certainly  have  defeated  all  sur- 
prise night-attacks  on  the  part  of  masters,  and  not,  as 
Plato  says,  have  "advanced  one  whit  in  virtue."  Boys 
are  far  more  ingenious  than  grown-up  men,  and  the  chal- 
lenge on  the  part  of  the  authorities  implied  by  creeping 
about  at  strange  hours  of  the  night  in  slippers  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  delightedly  accepted.  But  there  was 
no  such  challenge  and  well-conducted  dormitories,  by  far 
the  majority,  grew,  so  to  speak,  on  their  own  root,  and 
were  not  grafted  on  to  any  stem  that  fed  them  with  the 
sap  of  authority. 

Meantime,  the  fatal  foundation-scholarship  examina- 
tion, to  be  held  in  December,  was  approaching,  and  I 
awaited  its  advent  with  an  unruffled  consciousness  of 
another  failure  imminent.  To  prepare  for  it,  I  had 
certain  private  tuition  out  of  school  hours,  and  by  a  much 
more  oppressive  piece  of  legislation,  I  was  not  allowed  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  music  except  in  so  far  as  it  was 
musical  to  contribute  a  muscular  treble  to  the  choir  in 
chapel.  That  deprivation  I  still  deplore,  for  I  had  at  that 
time  an  odd  and  quite  untrained  faculty  for  visualizing, 
by  some  interior  process,  tunes  that  I  heard,  and  being 
able  to  "see"  them,  so  to  speak,  without  any  direct  exer- 
cise of  will.  Thus,  a  term  or  two  later,  when  an  ac- 
companist failed,  I  took  his  place  at  some  sing-song,  and 
transposed  at  sight  Handel's  "Where'er  you  walk," 
which  I  did  not  previously  know,  from  the  key  of  B 


144  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

flat  into  G,  without  any  sense  of  effort,  thanks  to  this  little 
"kink"  of  internal  visualization.  Whatever  that  kink 
was,  it  was  not  the  result  of  training,  but,  I  suppose,  some 
small  natural  aptitude  towards  the  science  of  sound  which 
now  I  dearly  wish  that  I  had  been  allowed  to  water  and 
cultivate  without  break.  It  must  have  been  a  feeble  and 
under-vitalized  growth,  for  when  I  was  at  liberty  again 
to  waste  as  much  time  as  I  chose  at  the  piano,  it  was 
certainly  less  vigorous  than  it  had  been,  and  never  after- 
wards recovered,  when  I  could  stray  and  strum  as  I 
pleased  in  melodious  pastures.  The  soil  in  which  it 
grew  was  there,  for  all  my  life  music  has  been  to  me  as 
a  celestial  light,  shining  in  dark  places  for  the  mitigation 
of  their  blackness,  and  flooding  the  serene  and  sunlit 
with  its  especial  gold,  but  from  that  soil  there  withered  a 
little  herb  that  once  grew  there,  a  nest  with  incubated 
eggs  was  despoiled,  and  the  bird  came  not  back.  But  I 
expect  that  the  wisdom  of  the  edict  was  fully  justified  in 
the  judgment  of  the  prohibitionists,  when  on  one  snowy 
morning  in  December  the  list  of  the  winners  of  founda- 
tion-scholarships was  promulgated,  and  there  was  my 
name  incredibly  among  them  at  a  decent  altitude. 

By  one  of  Nature's  most  admirable  devices  our  memo- 
ries always  retain  a  keener  sense  of  such  experiences  as 
have  been  enjoyable,  than  those  of  the  drabber  sort,  and 
to-day  I  find  nothing  that  I  can  pick  out  of  the  bran-pie 
that  was  not  bright  and  alluring.  There  were  friend- 
ships and  hero-worships,  the  initiation,  in  a  blue  and 
black  striped  jersey,  into  the  muddy  mysteries  of  Rugby 
football,  and  the  dizzy  heights  (soaring  far  above  the 
sordid  business  of  the  foundation-scholarship)  of  playing 
in  the  lower  team  of  the  house.  There  was  a  school  con- 
cert "it  the  end  of  that  first  term,  and  it  gave  me  a  com- 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        145 

placent  thrill  to  remember  that  I  was  a  foundation- 
scholar  when  the  "Carmen"  was  sung.  But  it  gave  me  a 
sense  of  stupefied  astonishment  to  hear  the  organist,  Mr. 
Bambridge,  play  as  an  encore  to  his  piano-solo,  his  own 
original  variations  on  the  theme  of  "Auld  Lang  Syne." 
Never  (except  in  the  case  of  Miss  Wirtz)  was  there  such 
a  finger,  and  speaking  purely  from  the  impression  then 
made,  I  should  be  obliged  to  confess  that  for  matter  of 
pure  brilliance  of  execution  and  mastery  of  technique, 
Mr.  Bambridge  must  have  been  a  far  more  accomplished 
performer  than  any  pianist  whom  I  have  heard  since. 
Why  did  he  not  take  London  by  storm  with  those  amaz- 
ing pyrotechnics  of  his  own  invention,  and  throne  himself 
higher  than  ever  Paderewski  or  Carreno  or  Busoni  soared  ? 
I  cannot  even  now  bring  myself  to  believe  that  any  of 
those  lesser  lights  ever  shone  like  Mr.  Bambridge,  when 
with  flying  fingers  and  any  quantity  of  the  loud  pedal  he 
swooped  up  and  down  in  pearly  runs  and  tremendous 
octaves,  while  all  the  time  that  powerful  thumb  of  his, 
relentless  and  regular  as  the  stroke  of  a  piston,  beat  out 
simultaneously  (there  was  the  wonder  of  it)  the  original 
air.  I  wanted  the  piano  to  comprise  an  extra  octave  or 
two  that  so  he  might  have  a  larger  arena  for  his  melodious 
magic.  I  wanted  to  have  more  ears,  so  that  they  should  all 
be  glutted  with  the  beautiful  banging  and  netted  in  the 
gossamer  of  Mr.  Bambridge's  chromatic  scales.  Even 
Bach — but  it  is  always  idle  to  make  comparisons  between 
the  supreme:  who  judges  between  the  various  peaks  that 
face  the  dawn,  or  cares  to  plumb  the  sea,  so  long  as  the 
sun  glitters  on  its  surface,  and  in  the  shadow  of  the  rock 
there  glows  the  translucent  blue  of  Tyre*?  .  .  . 

Straight  from  that  concert  I  made  my  honourable  re- 
turn to  Truro,  and  found  that  my  spurs  were  won,  and 


146  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

with  a  light  heart  played  Pirates  again,  and  under  the 
short  reign  of  Byron's  supremacy  (for  we  had  been  learn- 
ing "Childe  Harold"  by  heart  in  the  English  repetition 
lesson)  deluged  the  chaste  pages  of  the  Saturday  Mag- 
azine with  amorous  innocence.  Soon,  too,  the  butterfly 
collection  began  to  assume  the  virile  toga,  for  though 
music  was  forbidden  as  a  study,  natural  history,  as  en- 
couraged at  Marlborough  by  the  society  known  as  the 
"Bug  and  Beetle,"  was  a  legitimate  pursuit,  and  my  father 
strongly  approved  of  my  entering  for  the  "Staunton 
Prize,"  awarded  to  the  best  collection  of  butterflies  and 
moths,  to  be  made  that  spring  and  summer,  and  to  be 
adjudged  in  the  autumn.  In  the  warm  early-maturing 
spring  of  Cornwall,  the  downs  and  lanes  were  lively  with 
lepidoptera  at  Easter,  and  those  second  holidays,  passing 
in  a  whirl  of  butterfly  nets  and  a  corking  and  uncorking 
of  killing-bottles,  were  a  sort  of  canonization  of  the  col- 
lections. Brimstones  and  garden  whites,  and  holly  blues 
and  small  tortoiseshells  took  on  a  more  serious  aspect, 
and  the  pins  that  eventually  fixed  them  in  cork-lined 
boxes  were  indeed  as  nails  driven  in  by  masters  of  as- 
semblies. The  collection  must  be  a  strictly  personal  one : 
I  had  to  catch  the  victims  myself,  and  kill  and  set  them, 
but  Maggie,  even  more  wildly  enthusiastic  than  me, 
might,  without  a  violation  of  conscientious  scruples,  in- 
dicate a  yellow-tip  enjoying  the  sunshine,  or  among  nib- 
bled leaves  discover  a  geometer  caterpillar  turning  itself 
into  a  measuring-rod. 

Cricket,  therefore,  on  the  return  for  the  summer  half 
took  a  subordinate  place,  and  obtaining  "leave  off"  from 
it  as  a  compulsory  game,  I  spent  the  long  summer  after- 
noons in  the  enchantment  of  Savernake  Forest.  Here  it 
was  that  the  Staunton  Collection  began  to  lay  more  preg- 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        147 

nant  eggs  in  a  receptive  soil,  for  I  trace  to  those  sunny 
hours  the  betrothal  of  my  soul  to  the  goddess  of  trees 
and  solitary  places,  to  whose  allegiance  I  have  ever  been 
faithful.  Net  in  hand,  and  bulging  with  nests  of  chip- 
boxes  I  used  to  climb  the  steep  down  fringed  with  the 
secular  beeches  that  form  the  outer  wall  of  that  superb 
woodland,  pausing  perhaps  for  a  "blue"  or  a  "small 
copper"  on  the  way,  but  eager  for  entry  into  the  temple 
of  trees.  Here  underneath  those  living  towers,  the  earth 
would  be  bare,  but  from  the  coverts  where  the  sunlight 
fell  only  in  flakes  and  shower-drops  of  gold,  you  passed 
into  open  glades  of  bracken  and  bramble,  through  which 
ran  smooth  grass-walks  of  short  downland  turf.  In  these 
sunny  lakes  of  forest-enfolded  open,  a  few  hawthorns 
stood  like  snowy  and  sweet-smelling  islands,  and  along 
the  edges  of  the  grass-rides  hovered  the  speckled  fritilla- 
ries.  Then  came  a  group  of  hazel  trees  to  be  beaten,  with 
net  spread  beneath  to  catch  the  dropping  caterpillars,  and 
grey-trunked  oaks,  whose  bark  was  to  be  diligently 
searched  for  slumbering  dagger-moths,  difficult  to  find 
owing  to  their  protective  colouring.  Red-spotted  bumets 
clung  to  thistle-heads,  green  hair-streaks  (especially  in 
Rabley  Copse)  must  be  put  up  from  their  resting-places 
before  they  were  visible,  and  there  too  marble  whites 
rustled  their  chequered  wings  in  my  net.  Deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  forest  would  I  go,  and  though  I  had  every 
conscious  faculty  alert  for  pursuits  and  captures,  yet  all 
the  time — and  this  is  precisely  why  I  have  lingered  with 
such  prolixity  over  the  Staunton  Prize — the  honey-bees 
of  my  subconscious  self  were  swarming  in  with  their  im- 
perishable gleanings.  Cell  after  cell  they  constructed 
within"  me,  and  filled  them  with  the  essences  that  they 
culled  from  beech  and  fern  and  all  the  presences  that 


148  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

subtly  haunted  the  great  forest  aisles.  There  first  did  I 
hear  the  music  of  Pan's  flute  with  the  inward  ear,  and 
with  the  inward  eye  did  I  see  the  dancing  satyrs,  and 
the  dryads  of  the  woods;  and  if,  as  most  surely  I  believe, 
my  disembodied  spirit  shall  some  day  visit  the  places 
where  I  learned  to  love  the  beauty  of  this  peerless  world, 
how  swiftly  will  it  traverse  the  thyme-tufted  downs  of 
Wiltshire  to  breathe  again  the  noble  and  august  serenity 
of  the  forest,  and  see  the  fritillaries  poise  on  the  bracken 
at  the  edge  of  the  grass-rides. 

The  Staunton  Prize  (with  how  much  more  derived 
from  those  excursions!)  fluttered  pleasantly  into  my 
butterfly  net,  and  with  the  flaming  of  the  autumn  leaves, 
and  the  hibernation  of  my  quarry,  another  interest,  that 
of  athleticism,  asserted  its  supremacy  over  its  eager  sub- 
ject. Much  has  been  written  by  many  wise  men  as  to 
this  robust  autocracy  in  schools,  deploring  its  paramount 
sway,  and  suggesting  nobler  ideals  than  muscular  swift- 
ness and  accuracy  of  eye  for  youth's  pursuing,  but  what, 
when  all  is  said  and  done,  can  be  proposed  as  a  substi- 
tute while  the  nature  of  the  average  boy  remains  what 
it  is^  Love  of  learning,  intellectual  am.bitions  at  that  age 
are  natural  but  to  the  few,  and  while  we  all  respect  the 
youth  who  at  the  age  of  fifteen  is  really  more  attracted  by 
history  or  philosophy  than  by  fives  and  football,  who  can 
believe  that  there  would  be  any  great  gain  to  the  nation 
at  large  if  every  schoolboy  was  like  him?  It  is  frankly 
unthinkable  that  the  average  boy  should  choose  as  his 
heroes  those  members  of  the  sixth  form  who  have  a  tre» 
mendous  aptitude  for  Iambics,  or  applaud,  with  the 
fanatic  enthusiasm  with  which  he  hails  a  fine  run  down 
the  football  field,  the  intellectual  athlete  who  this  morn- 
ing showed  up  so  stunning  a  piece  of  Ciceronian  prose. 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        149 

Full  opportunity  in  school  hours  and  in  voluntary  study  is 
given  to  the  few  who,  from  physical  disability  or  mental 
precocity,  actually  prefer  intellectual  pursuits  to  athletics, 
but  the  English  fifteen-year-old  is  naturally  a  Philistine, 
and  Philistia  had  much  better  be  glad  of  him.  For  as 
a  rule  he  is  not  a  prig,  and  while  he  carmot  quite  under- 
stand how  anyone  should  prefer  reading  to  playing  games, 
he  does  not  despise  the  student,  but  generally  refers  to 
him  with  a  certain  vague  respect  as  being  "jolly  clever." 
But  if  it  was  possible  to  implant  firmly  in  the  soil  of 
schools  the  intellectual  banner,  and  to  succeed  in  making 
the  whole  body  of  boys  rally  enthusiastically  round  it,  it 
is  difficult  to  repress  a  shudder  at  the  thought  of  what 
that  school  would  be  like.  Germany,  perhaps,  alone 
among  the  modem  nations  has  succeeded  in  imbuing  its 
youth  with  a  passion  for  learning  and  discipline,  and  it 
would  appear,  now  that  we  have  been  able  to  appreciate 
German  mentality,  that  this  triumphant  achievement 
has  been  won  at  an  appalling  cost ;  at  the  cost,  that  is,  of 
precisely  those  virtues  which  games,  generally  speaking, 
are  productive  of.  And  in  the  long  run,  and  on  the  large 
scale  that  type  seems  to  come  to  a  bad  maturity. 

It  is  right  then  that  for  small  boys  games  no  less 
than  work  should  be  compulsory,  for  if  work  produces 
the  man  of  letters,  the  man  of  science,  the  artist,  the  edu- 
cated individual  who  can  take  his  place  in  a  progressive 
nation,  not  less  do  games  produce  a  certain  general  hardi- 
hood, a  sense  of  fair  play,  lacking  which  we  should  fare 
badly  as  a  nation.  To  most  boys  with  growing  limbs 
and  swelling  sinews,  physical  activity  is  a  natural  in- 
stinct, and  there  is  no  need  to  drive  them  into  the  foot- 
ball field  or  the  fives  court:  they  go  there  because  they 
like  it,  and  there  is  no  need  to  make  games  compulsory 


150  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

for  them.  But  it  is  for  those  who,  whether  from  a  lazy 
habit  of  body  or  from  a  precociously  active  habit  of  mind, 
do  not  naturally  gravitate  to  those  pleasant  arenas,  that 
this  compulsion  is  necessary,  and  to  make  them,  for  the 
sake  of  their  health,  go  for  a  walk  instead,  does  not 
produce  at  all  the  desired  effect.  They  can  go  for  any 
number  of  pleasant  walks  when  they  are  fifty:  at  fifteen 
(given  they  have  not  got  some  corporal  disability)  it  is 
far  better  for  them  to  run  and  to  kick  and  to  hit  and  to 
sweat.  Not  their  bodies  alone  partake  in  these  benefits : 
their  minds  learn  control  of  all  kinds;  they  must  keep 
their  tempers,  they  must  remain  cool  in  hot  corners  (such 
as  they  will  assuredly  experience  in  their  offices  in  later 
life),  they  must  maintain  a  certain  suavity  in  the  midst 
of  violence;  and  it  is  just  this  discipline  here  roughly 
summed  up  that  gives  games  their  value.  Presently, 
when  the  studious  are  a  year  or  two  older,  they  will  have 
attained  to  scholastic  altitudes  where  athletic  compulsion 
is  no  longer  put  upon  them,  and  then  they  can  please 
themselves.  By  that  time,  too,  the  normal  young  Philis- 
tine will  have  awoke  to  the  importance  of  other  things 
than  games,  and,  unless  he  is  a  sheer  impenetrable 
dunce,  have  come  to  regard  the  studious  with  far  more 
sincere  respect.  But  for  both,  this  year  or  two  of  com- 
pulsion is  wholly  beneficial.  As  for  the  supposed  inflex- 
ibility of  this  athletic  autocracy,  it  is  founded  on  a  com- 
plete misapprehension:  it  should  with  far  more  accuracy 
be  described  as  a  democracy,  for  its  heroes  and  legisla- 
tors are  undoubtedly  elected  by  the  people,  and  until  the 
nature  of  boys  is  subjected  to  some  radical  operation,  so 
long  will  they  continue  (though  with  infinite  indulgence 
for  the  "jolly  clever")  to  make  heroes  after  their  own 
hearts. 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS         151 

That  which  above  all  gilded  and  glorified  these  de- 
lights, that  which  was  the  stem  from  which  their  green 
leaves  drew  nourishment,  was  friendship.  All  these  were 
the  foliage  that  was  fed  from  that  stem,  though  the  sun 
and  the  clear  windy  air  and  the  rain  fortified  and  re- 
freshed them  and  swelled  the  buds  that  expanded  into 
flowers.  For  what  man  is  there,  surrounded  though  he 
be  with  the  love  of  wife  and  children,  who  does  not  re- 
tain a  memory  of  the  romantic  affection  of  boys  for  each 
other?  Having  felt  it,  he  could  scarcely  have  forgotten 
it,  and  if  he  never  felt  it  he  missed  one  of  the  most 
golden  of  the  prizes  of  youth,  unrecapturable  in  mature 
life.  In  many  ways  boys  are  a  sex  quite  apart  from  male 
or  female:  though  they  take  on  much  of  what  they  are 
and  of  what  they  learn,  strengthened  and  expanded,  into 
manhood,  they  leave  behind,  given  that  they  grow  into 
normal  and  healthy  beings,  a  certain  emotional  affection 
towards  the  coevals  of  their  own  sex  which  is  natural  to 
public-school  boyhood,  even  as  it  is,  though  perhaps  less 
robustly,  to  girlhood.  For  twelve  or  thirteen  weeks  three 
times  a  year  they  live  exclusively  among  boys,  and  that 
at  a  time  when  their  vigour  is  at  its  strongest,  and  it 
would  demand  of  them  a  fish-like  inhumanity,  if  they 
were  asked  to  let  their  friendships  alone  have  no  share 
of  the  tremendous  high  colours  in  which  their  lives  are 
dipped.  Naturally  there  is  danger  about  it  (for  what 
emotion  worth  having  is  not  encompassed  by  perils'?) 
and  this  strong  beat  of  affection  may  easily  explode  into 
fragments  of  mere  sensuality,  be  dissipated  in  mere 
"smut"  and  from  being  a  banner  in  the  clean  wind  be 
trampled  into  mud.  But  promiscuous  immorality  was,  as 
far  as  I  am  aware,  quite  foreign  to  the  school,  though 
we  flamed  into  a  hundred  hot  bonfires  of  these  friend- 


152  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ships,  which  were  discussed  with  a  freedom  that  would 
seem  appalling,  if  you  forgot  that  you  were  dealing  with 
boys  and  not  with  men.  Blaze  after  blaze  illumined  our 
excited  lives,  for  without  being  one  whit  less  genuine 
while  they  lasted,  there  was  no  very  permanent  quality 
about  these  friendships.  Your  friend  or  you  might  get 
swept  into  another  orbit;  diversity  of  tastes,  promotion 
in  school,  conflicting  interests  might  sever  you,  and  in 
all  friendliness  you  passed  on,  with  eyes  eager  to  give  or 
to  receive  some  new  shy  signal  which  heralded  the  ap- 
proach of  another  of  these  genial  passions.  For  me 
the  sentimentality  that  coloured  the  choir-boy  affair,  or 
that  not  less  misbegotten  case  of  Mrs.  Carter  had  quite 
faded  from  my  emotional  palette,  which  now  was  spread 
with  hues  far  more  robust  and  healthy.  My  signals  were 
all  made  for  the  strong  and  the  masculine,  and  I  quite 
put  out  my  lights  and  showed  a  stony  blackness  to  flut- 
terings  from  one  of  mincing  walk  or  elegant  gestures  or 
a  conjectured  softness  of  disposition.  I  loved  the  children 
of  the  sun,  and  the  friends  of  rain  and  wind,  who  were 
swift  in  the  three-quarter  line,  and  played  squash  with 
me  in  the  snow ;  but  still,  by  some  strange  law  of  attrac- 
tion, too  regular  for  coincidence,  they  were  most  of  them 
musical,  and  once  more,  though  now  without  sentimental- 
ity, chapel  services,  as  in  the  case  of  the  choir-boy  and 
Lincoln  Cathedral,  were  entwined  with  my  volatile  but 
violent  affections.  One  such  friend  sang  tenor  and  I 
intrigued  my  corn-crake  way  back  into  the  choir  in  order 
to  sit  next  him:  another  led  the  trebles.  He  must  have 
been  quite  two  years  younger  than  myself,  which  is  a 
gulf  wider  than  two  decades  in  mature  life.  But  we 
bridged  it  with  a  structure  that  carried  us  safely  to  each 
other;  there  was  music  in  that  bridge,  and  there  was  the 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        153 

wonder  in  young  eyes  of  the  fact  that  you  had  found  (and 
so  had  he)  a  passionate  pilgrim,  voyaging  through  fives- 
courts  and  glades  of  Savernake,  because  of  whom  those 
external  phenomena  shone  with  a  new  brightness,  so 
that  now  the  sweep  of  the  forest,  and  the  fives-courts,  and 
the  mire  in  the  football  fields,  and  the  inadequate  bound- 
ing of  balls  in  an  open  squash  court,  owing  to  the  snow 
that  lay  soddenly  melting,  grew  into  scenes  and  settings 
for  the  jewels  of  human  companionships  and  boyish  af- 
fections. 

Intellectual  kinship,  community  of  tastes  had  very 
little  part  in  those  friendships:  they  were  founded  on  a 
subtle  instinct,  and  they  were  bom  of  a  blind  mutual 
choice.  Often  your  tentative  scouting  was  quite  still- 
bom:  you  would  hope  for  a  friendship,  and  perhaps  he 
would  have  no  signals  for  you,  but  wait  wide-eyed  and 
expectant,  for  somebody  quite  different.  Or  again  you 
could  have  a  "culte"  (to  adopt  an  odious  phraseology  for 
which,  in  English,  there  happens  to  be  no  equivalent) 
for  someone,  who  in  the  sundered  worlds  of  modem  and 
classic  schools,  might  be  miles  away,  and  then  with  a 
sudden  and  wondrous  reward,  the  idol  would  give  some 
such  signal  of  glance  (that  would  be  a  direct  method)  or 
more  indirectly,  he  would  say  something  to  his  compan- 
ion as  he  happened  to  pass  you  in  the  court,  which  you 
knew  was  really  meant  for  you,  and  on  your  next  meet- 
ing you  would  perhaps  get  a  glance,  which  was  at  least 
an  enquiry  as  to  whether  you  were  disposed  towards 
friendship.  And  then  as  you  waited  in  the  clear  dusk 
of  some  summer  evening  for  the  sounding  of  the  boring 
chapel-bell,  you  would  sit  down  on  one  of  the  seats  round 
the  lime-trees  in  the  court  outside,  and  he  would  stroll  by, 
still  linked  by  an  arm  to  some  other  friend,  and  you 


154  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

rather  dolefully  wondered  whether,  after  all,  there  was 
to  be  anything  doing.  The  two  would  be  lost  in  the 
crowd  beginning  to  collect  round  the  chapel  gate,  and  then 
perhaps  the  figure  for  which  you  were  watching  would 
detach  itself,  alone  now,  from  the  others,  and  with  an 
elaborate  unconsciousness  of  your  presence  he  would 
stroll  to  the  seat  where  you  waited,  and  with  the  impla- 
cable shyness  that  always  ushered  in  these  affairs  still 
take  no  notice  of  you.  As  he  sat  down  it  may  be  that  a 
book  dropped  from  under  his  arm,  and  you  picked  it  up 
for  him,  and  he  said,  "Oh  thanks!  Hullo,  is  that  you?" 
knowing  perfectly  well  that  it  was,  and  you  would  say, 
"Hullo!"  ...  So  after  each  had  said,  "Hullo,"  one 
said,  "There's  about  three  minutes  yet  before  stroke,  isn't 
there'?"  and  the  other  replied,  "About  that,"  and  then 
taking  the  plunge  said : 

"I  say,  I've  got  a  squash  court  to-morrow  at  twelve. 
Will  you  have  a  game*?"  and  the  answer,  if  things  were 
going  well  would  be,  "O  ripping;  thanks  awfully!" 

Then  a  precious  minute  would  go  by  in  silence  and  it 
was  time  to  get  up  and  go  into  chapel,  with  a  new  joy  of 
life  swimming  into  your  ken.  Never  did  Cortez  stare  at 
the  Pacific  with  a  wilder  surmise  than  that  with  which  he 
and  you  looked  at  each  other  as  together  you  passed  out  of 
the  dusk  into  the  brightly  lit  ante-chapel,  thinking  of  that 
game  of  squash  to-morrow,  which  perhaps  was  to  lay  the 
foundation-stone  of  the  temple  of  a  new  friendship.  There 
would  be  time  enough  after  that  for  a  dip  at  the  bathing- 
place,  and  a  breathless  race  not  to  be  late  for  hall.  .  .  . 

The  ardent  affair,  if  the  squash  and  the  bath  had 
been  satisfactory,  blazed  after  that  like  a  prairie  fire,  and 
the  two  became  inseparable  for  a  term,  or  if  not  that  for 
a  few  weeks.     But  to  suppose  that  this  ardency  was 


THE  WIDENIN.G  HORIZONS        155 

sensual  is  to  miss  the  point  of  it  and  lose  the  value  of  it 
altogether.  That  the  base  of  the  attraction  was  largely 
physical  is  no  doubt  true,  for  it  was  founded  primarily 
on  appearance,  but  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the 
breezy  open-air  quality  of  these  friendships  and  the  dingy 
sensualism  which  sometimes  is  wrongly  attributed  to 
them.  A  grown-up  man  cannot  conceivably  recapture 
their  quality,  so  as  to  experience  it  emotionally,  but  to 
confuse  it  with  moral  perversion,  as  the  adult  understand 
that,  is  merely  to  misunderstand  it. 

For  a  year  I  sat  solid  and  unmovable  in  the  form  in 
which  I  had  been  placed  when  I  came  to  Marlborough, 
and  was  then  hoisted  into  the  lower  fifth,  and  began  a 
rather  swifter  climbing  of  the  scholastic  ladder,  because  I 
came  for  the  first  time  under  a  master  who  woke  in  me 
an  intellectual  interest  in  Greek  and  Latin.  This  was 
A.  H.  Beesly,  who  was  by  far  the  most  gifted  teacher  I 
ever  came  under  either  at  school  or  at  the  University. 
Not  for  me  alone  but  for  his  whole  form  he  made  waters 
break  out  in  the  wilderness,  and  irrigated  the  sad  story 
of  Hecuba  with  the  springs  of  human  emotion.  He  had 
translated  it  himself  into  English  blank  verse,  with  a  pro- 
logue that  told  how  some  Athenian  slave,  carried  off  to 
Rome  to  serve  in  the  household,  read  to  fellow-captives 
this  song  of  Zion  in  his  captivity.  What  the  intrinsic 
merits  of  the  translation  were,  I  can  form  no  idea,  but  of 
the  effect  of  it  on  his  form,  as  read  by  the  author,  I  cherish 
the  liveliest  memory.  For  three  or  four  Hecuba  lessons 
we  would  get  no  reading,  and  then  Beesly  would  turn 
round  to  the  fire  when  we  had  stumbled  through  another 
thirty  lines,  and  say,  "Well  now,  you  boys  don't  know 
what  a  fine  thing  it  is.    Let's  see  what  we  can  make  of 


156  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

your  last  few  lessons.  I'll  read  you  a  translation:  follow 
it  in  your  Greek.  We'll  begin  at  line  130."  Then  he 
would  read  this  sumptuous  jewelled  paraphrase,  which 
rendered  in  English  blank  verse  the  sense  of  the  passages 
we  had  droned  and  plodded  through,  and  gave  them  the 
dramatic  significance  which  we  all  had  missed  when  we 
took  the  original  in  compulsory  doses  of  Greek.  For  a 
long  time  we  never  knew  who  was  the  author  of  this 
English  version,  and  then  one  day  Beesly  brought  into 
form  a  whole  bale  of  copies,  printed  in  sheets,  unfolded 
and  uncut,  and  gave  one  to  each  of  us.  There  was  the 
name  on  the  title  page,  as  translated  by  A.  H.  B.,  with 
the  heading,  "The  Trojan  Queen's  Revenge."  Never  in 
bookshop  or  in  second-hand  bookstall  have  I  seen  a  copy 
of  that  work,  and  I  rejoice  in  that  for  perhaps  I  might  be 
disillusioned  as  to  its  merits,  if  I  had  seen  it  subsequently. 
Certainly  "The  Trojan  Queen's  Revenge"  was  printed, 
but  I  suspect  (and  bury  the  suspicion)  that  it  fell  still- 
bom  from  the  press,  and  that  the  author  bought  up  the 
unbound  copies.  As  it  is,  it  has  for  me  the  significance  of 
some  equerry  who  introduced  me  to  the  presence  of  royal 
Greece,  making  the  Greeks  from  that  day  forth  the 
supreme  interpreters  of  humanity.  Under  the  influence 
of  "The  Trojan  Queen's  Revenge"  I  passed  through  the 
portals  into  the  very  throne-room  of  that  House  of  Art, 
so  that  to  this  day  I  must  secretly  always  employ  a  cer- 
tain Greek  standard  to  whatever  the  world  holds  of 
beauty.  Greek  gems,  Greek  statues,  became  for  me  the 
gold  standard,  compared  to  which  all  else,  though  noble, 
must  be  of  baser  stuff.  There  were  to  be  many  idle  terms 
yet  before  I  cared  one  atom  about  the  Greek  language 
intrinsically :  as  far  as  the  literature  went  I  only  cared  for 
the  spirit  of  it  revealed  in  "The  Trojan  Queen's  Re- 


THE  WIDENIN.G  HORIZONS        157 

venge."  And  before  I  quitted  that  form  we  had  pieces 
of  CEdipus  Coloneus  brought  to  our  notice,  and  once  again 
Beesly  read  out  some  translation — I  suppose  of  his  own 
— of  the  great  chorus. 

"But  if  you  want  the  spirit  of  it,"  he  said,  "listen  to 
this.  It's  by  a  man  called  Swinburne,  of  whom  you  have 
probably  never  heard.    Shut  your  books." 

I  can  see  him  now:  it  was  a  chilly  day  in  spring  and 
he  put  his  feet  up  on  the  side  of  the  stove  that  warmed 
the  classroom.  He  had  closed  his  book  too,  and  his  blue 
merry  eyes  grew  grave  as  he  began : 

"When  the  hounds  of  spring  are  on  winter's  traces, 
The  mother  of  months  in  meadow  and  plain 
Fills  the  hollows  and  windy  place 
With  lisp  of  leaves  and  ripple  of  rain, 
And  the  bright  brown  nightingale,  amorous, 
Is  half  assuaged  for  Itylum, 
For  the  Thracian  ships  and  the  foreign  faces. 
The  tongueless  vigil  and  all  the  pain." 

Beesly  held  the  thirty  boys  under  the  spell  of  that 
magic:  we  were  all  quite  ordinary  youngsters  of  fifteen 
and  sixteen,  and  lo,  we  were  a  harp  in  his  hand  and  he 
thrummed  us  into  melody.  There  was  stir  and  trampling 
of  feet  outside,  for  the  hour  of  school  was  over,  and  I 
remember  well  that  he  waited  at  the  end  of  one  stanza, 
and  said,  "Shall  I  finish  it  or  would  you  like  to  go*?  Any 
boy  who  likes  may  go." 

Nobody  got  up  (it  was  not  from  fear  of  his  disap- 
proval), and  he  went  on: 

"For  winter's  rains  and  ruins  are  over, 
And  all  the  season  of  snows  and  sins, 
The  day  that  severs  lover  from  lover, 


158  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

The  light  that  loses,  the  night  that  wins. 
And  Time  remembered  is  grief  forgotten, 
And  frosts  are  slain  and  flowers  begotten, 
And  in  green  underwood  and  cover 
Blossom  by  blossom  the  spring  begins." 

He  came  to  the  end  of  the  chorus  and  got  up. 

"You  can  all  be  ten  minutes  late  next  school,"  he  said, 
"because  I  have  kept  you." 

Just  as  I  must  always  think  of  "The  Trojan  Queen's 
Revenge"  as  being  among  the  masterpieces  of  blank 
verse  in  the  English  language,  so  I  cannot  believe  that 
Beesly  was  not  the  finest  racket-player  who  has  ever  served 
that  fascinating  little  hard  ball  into  the  side-nick  of  the 
back-hand  court.  There  was  a  new  racket  court  just 
built  in  the  corner  of  the  cricket-field,  and  here  at  twelve 
o'clock  on  three  mornings  of  the  week,  Beesly  and  another 
master  played  the  two  boys  who  would  represent  the 
school  in  the  Public  Schools  racket  competition  at  Easter. 
The  court,  anonymously  presented  to  the  school,  was  an- 
nounced, when  Beesly  retired  a  few  years  later,  to  be  his 
gift,  and  he  provided  practically  all  the  balls  used  in  these 
games.  Hour  after  hour  I  used  to  watch  these  matches 
and  began  to  play  myself  with  the  juniors.  Beesly  often 
looked  on  from  the  gallery,  in  order  to  detect  new  talent, 
and  on  one  imperishable  day,  as  we  came  out  of  the  court 
he  said  to  me,  "You've  got  some  notion  of  the  game: 
mind  you  stick  to  it."  If  I  had  wanted  any  encourage- 
ment that  would  have  determined  me,  and  I  began  to 
think  rackets  and  dream  rackets  and  visualize  nick-services 
and  half-volley  returns  just  above  the  line.  Beesly  kept 
a  quiet  eye  on  me,  and  after  I  had  left  his  form,  he  would 
often  ask  me  to  walk  up  towards  his  house  with  him,  if 
I  was  going  that  way,  and  would  ask  me  to  breakfast  on 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        159 

Sunday  mornings,  and  what  feasts  of  the  gods  were  these  I 
Perhaps  there  would  be  one  of  the  school  representatives 
there,  and  Bcesly,  when  the  sausages  and  the  kidneys 
were  done,  would  show  us  the  racket  cups  he  had  won,  or 
he  would  read  us  something  or  tend  the  flowers  in  his 
greenhouse.  All  this  sounds  trivial,  but  he  never  pro- 
duced a  trivial  effect,  and  gradually  he  established  over 
me  a  complete  hold,  morally  and  mentally,  which  was 
as  far  as  I  can  judge  entirely  healthy  and  stimulating.  If 
he  had  seen  me  often  with  someone  whom  he  considered 
an  undesirable  companion  he  would  fidget  and  grunt  a 
little  and  pull  his  long  whiskers,  and  then  with  a  glance 
merry  and  shy  and  wholly  disarming  he  said,  "Now  there 
are  plenty  of  people  it's  good  to  see  a  little  of,  but  not  too 
much  of."  He  would  mention  no  name,  but  he  never 
failed  to  convey  the  sense  of  his  allusion.  On  the  other 
hand  if  he  thought  I  was  devoting  myself  too  much  to 
games  (and  in  especial  rackets)  he  would  say,  "Nothing 
makes  you  enjoy  a  game  of  rackets  so  much  as  having 
done  a  couple  of  hours  hard  work  first."  Or  if,  having 
watched  me  playing,  he  thought  I  wasn't  taking  the  game 
seriously  enough,  he  would  stroll  away  with  me  from  the 
court,  and  a  propos  of  nothing  at  all,  he  would  casually 
remark,  "Better  do  nothing  than  do  a  thing  slackly. 
You'll  find  your  games  fall  off,  unless  you  play  as  hard 
as  you  can."  .  .  .  And  then  up  at  his  house  on  one 
ecstatic  morning  when  I  was  getting  on  for  seventeen  he 
suddenly  said,  "You'll  be  playing  for  the  school  next 
year  if  you  take  pains."  Next  moment  he  had  a  volume 
of  Browning  in  his  hand  and  said,  "Browning  now :  ever 
read  any  Browning^  I  thought  not.  Listen  to  me  for 
a  couple  of  minutes,"  and  he  read  "The  Lost  Leader." 
Once,  I  remember,  I  had  been  to  his  house  in  the  evening, 


160  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIIIS 

and  he  walked  back  with  me  across  the  cricket-field  after 
night  had  fallen.  The  sky  was  clear  and  a  myriad  frosty 
stars  burned  there.  For  some  little  way  Beesly  walked 
in  silence,  then,  in  his  low  distinct  voice  he  began: 

"See  how  the  floor  of  heaven 
Is  thick  inlaid  with  patens  of  bright  gold." 

I  insist  on  the  apparent  triviality  and  fragmentariness 
of  all  this,  for  it  was  just  in  these  ways,  not  in  heavy 
discourses  or  lectures  on  morality  and  studiousness  and 
activity,  that  Beesly  gained  his  ascendency  over  me.  He 
was  never  a  great  talker,  but  these  obiter  dicta  stamped 
themselves  on  my  mind  like  some  stroke  of  a  steel  die 
on  malleable  metal.  He  was  never  in  the  smallest  degree 
demonstrative:  he  might  have  been  speaking  to  a  blank 
wall,  except  just  for  that  glance,  merry  and  intimate, 
which  he  occasionally  showed  me,  but  for  all  that  I 
divined  a  strong  affection,  which  I  for  my  part  returned 
in  a  glow  of  hero-worship.  The  very  fact  that  he  never 
asked  for  a  confidence  prompted  me  to  tell  him  all  that 
perplexed  or  interested  me,  in  the  sure  knowledge  that  he 
would  always  throw  light  in  some  brief  curt  sentence. 
"Stupid  thing  to  do,"  was  one  of  his  wise  comments  when 
I  had  told  him  of  some  row  I  had  got  into  with  my  house 
master.  "Go  and  apologize,  and  then  don't  think  any- 
thing more  about  it."  There  was  the  root  and  kernel 
of  the  matter :  down  came  that  steel  die,  sharply  impress- 
ing itself,  whereas  discursive  and  laboured  advice  would 
have  merely  been  boring  and  unconvincing.  Off  I  went, 
trusting  implicitly  in  his  wisdom,  and  finding  it  wholly 
justified. 

And  then,  alas  and  alas,  I  wholly  and  utterly  disap- 


THE  WIDENING  HORIZONS        161 

pointed  Beesly.  I  had,  as  he  prophesied,  attained  to  the 
dignity  of  playing  for  the  school  at  rackets,  and  had  yet 
another  year  before  I  left,  and  he  made  up  his  mind  that 
I  and  my  partner  were  going  to  win  the  challenge  cup 
for  Marlborough,  where  it  had  never  yet  been  brought 
home.  Certainly  two  terms  before  that  final  event  we 
were  an  extremely  promising  pair,  but  after  that  we 
scarcely  improved  at  all,  and  fell  from  one  stagnation  of 
staleness  into  another.  Beesly  took  the  wrong  line  about 
this,  and  in  the  Christmas  holidays  that  year  I  went  to 
stay  with  him  at  Torquay,  in  order  to  get  more  practice, 
whereas  what  I  needed  was  less  practice.  Even  then  we 
made  a  close  match  in  the  semi-final  or  thereabouts  with 
the  pair  who  eventually  won,  and  Beesly,  who  up  till 
the  last  day,  when  he  urged  me  to  take  a  heroic  dose  of 
Hunyadi  water,  continued  to  cling  to  the  idea  that  at 
last  Marlborough  would  win,  had  all  his  hopes  dashed 
to  atoms.  Well  do  I  remember  his  waiting  for  me  out- 
side the  court,  when  we  came  out ;  he  could  hardly  speak, 
but  he  patted  me  on  the  shoulder  and  blurted  out,  "Well, 
I  know  you  did  your  best:  I  know  that,"  and  walked 
quickly  away.  He  wrote  me  that  night  the  most  charming 
letter,  trying  to  console  me  who  really  cared  far  less 
than  he  did;  for  it  was,  I  am  perfectly  convinced,  the  main 
ambition  of  his  life  that  Marlborough  should  win  this 
cup,  and  for  a  whole  year  he  had  believed  that  now  at 
last  we  were  going  to,  and  that  I  was  the  chief  of  the 
instruments  through  whom  that  ambition  was  to  be 
realized. 

He  combined  his  two  passions  for  rackets  and  poetry, 
in  some  such  way  as  Pindar,  who  wrote  the  most  mag- 
nificent odes  the  world  has  ever  read  in  honour  of  boys 
who  won  victories  at  Olympia,  and  it  was  this  Pindaric 


162  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

affection  which  he  felt  for  those  on  whom  his  hopes 
centred  at  Queen's.  The  affection  I  certainly  returned, 
but  woe  for  the  manner  in  which  I  failed  to  fulfil  the  rest 
of  the  contract. 

I  suspect  he  was  an  unhappy  man,  and  he  was  certainly 
a  very  lonely  one,  and  his  loneliness  no  doubt  was  ac- 
centuated to  him  by  his  shy  reticence.  He  kept  himself 
largely  apart  from  other  masters ;  to  the  best  of  my  knowl- 
edge I  never  saw  him  speak  to  a  woman,  and  all  the  time 
he  was  stewing  in  the  affection  which  he  was  incapable  of 
expressing.  But  he  had,  out  and  away,  by  far  the  most 
forcible  and  attractive  personality  of  any  tutor  I  came 
across  either  at  school  or  the  University  he  was  one  of 
those  reserved  demi-gods  whom  a  boy  obeys,  reverences, 
and  loves  for  no  ostensible  reason. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON 


WHILE  I  was  Still  in  my  second  year  at  Marl- 
borough a  thoroughly  exciting  and  delightful 
thing  happened  at  home,  for  my  father  was  appointed 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  up  trooped  his  pleased 
and  approving  family  to  take  possession  of  Lambeth  Pal- 
ace and  Addington  Park  with,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned, 
a  feeling  that  he  had  done  great  credit  to  us.  Delight- 
ful as  Truro  had  been,  we  all  welcomed  the  idea  of  these 
expanded  grandeurs,  and  felt  colossally  capable  of  tak- 
ing advantage  of  them  to  the  utmost.  How  great  a  man 
my  father  had  become  was  most  pointedly  brought  home 
to  me  by  the  fact  that,  when  he  came  down  to  Marl- 
borough soon  after  his  appointment  for  my  confirmation, 
I  could,  then  and  there,  measure  the  altitude  of  his  pin- 
nacle by  the  fact  that  there  appeared  on  the  school  notice- 
board  next  day  an  inscription  to  the  effect  that  His  Grace 
had  asked  that  a  whole  holiday  should  be  given  to  the 
school  in  honour  of  his  visit.  He  had  just  asked  for  it, 
so  it  appeared,  and  in  honour  of  his  visit,  it  was  granted. 
"Can't  you  be  confirmed  again"?"  was  the  gratifying  com- 
ment of  friends.     "I  say,  do  be  confirmed  again." 

To  me,  personally,  all  the  splendour  and  dignity  of  his 
office  signified  nothing :  what  concerned  a  boy  in  the  orgy 
of  his  holidays,  was  the  new  sumptuousness  of  his  sur- 
roundings. 

163 


164  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Stupendous  though  my  father  had  become,  we  knew 
but  little  of  his  work  and  of  its  national  significance,  and 
it  was  my  mother  who  to  us,  far  more  than  he,  was  ex- 
alted into  the  zenith.  Often  since  has  she  told  me  how 
shy  and  inadequate  she  felt  on  entering  London,  as  she 
now  did  for  the  first  time,  in  such  a  position,  but  never 
can  I  conceive  of  her  otherwise  than  as  filling  it  with  the 
supremest  enjoyment,  which,  after  all,  is  the  first  of  a 
hostess's  qualities.  Her  wisdom,  her  conversational  bril- 
liance, above  all  her  intense  love  of  people,  just  as  such, 
nobly  filled  and  fitted  the  new  sphere.  The  management 
of  the  great  house,  with  the  added  concern  of  the  second 
house  at  Addington,  appeared  in  her  a  natural  and  effort- 
less instinct :  she  took  the  reins  and  cracked  her  whip,  and 
the  whole  equipage  bowled  swift  and  smooth  along  the 
road.  The  stables  were  under  her  control  as  well;  she 
arranged  all  the  comings  and  goings  of  my  father:  out 
rolled  his  landau  with  its  tall  black  high-stepping  horses 
and  gilded  harness  to  take  him  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  scarce  had  the  great  gates  below  Morton's  tower 
clanged  open  for  him,  than  Maggie  and  I  set  out  on  our 
horses  for  a  ride  round  the  Row,  very  stiff  in  top-hats, 
and  riding  habit  and  strapped  trousers,  and  then  round 
came  my  mother's  victoria,  and  woe  be  to  the  carriage- 
cleaner  if  the  japanned  panels  failed  to  reflect  with  the 
unwavering  quality  of  glass.  She  would  be  going  to  pay 
a  couple  of  calls  and  visit  a  dentist,  and  while  she  was 
there,  the  victoria  would  take  Hugh  and  Nellie  to  the 
Zoo,  and  drop  them  with  strict  injunctions  that  in  an  hour 
precisely  they  were  to  pick  her  up  at  a  fatal  door  in  Old 
Burlington  Street,  and  so  proceed  homewards  to  tea. 
Meanwhile  the  carriage  that  deposited  my  father  at  the 
House  could  take  Arthur  to  some  other  rendezvous,  and 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       165 

once  at  any  rate,  the  hansom  containing  the  Archbishop 
was  prevented  from  entering  the  Lambeth  Gate,  because 
the  Archbishop's  carriage  (containing  Hugh  and  me) 
must  be  admitted  first.  Never  were  children  so  indulged 
in  the  matter  of  equine  locomotion,  for  the  riding  horses 
clattered  in  and  out,  and  Hugh  returning  from  a  straw- 
hatted  visit  to  the  Zoo  must  in  three  minutes  hurl  him- 
self into  the  top-hatted  and  black-coated  garb  which  in 
those  days  was  current  in  the  Row,  in  order  to  ride  with 
my  father  on  his  return  from  the  House.  One  of  the  five 
of  us,  at  any  rate,  was  kept  on  tap  for  a  rather  stately 
ride  with  him  whenever  during  the  busy  day  he  found 
an  hour  to  spare,  and  it  was  a  pompous  pleasure  to  see  the 
traffic  stopped  at  Hyde  Park  Corner,  so  that  we  might  ride 
past  saluting  policemen  through  the  arch.  Physically  I 
suppose  we  enjoyed  our  fraternal  scampers  more,  but  it 
could  not  help  being  great  fun  for  a  boy  of  fifteen  to 
steer  a  rather  fretful  horse  that  went  sideways  across  the 
Street  and  behaved  itself  unseemly,  while  tall  buses  waited 
for  his  esteemed  progress.  After  all,  if  you  happened  to 
be  riding  with  your  father,  for  whose  passage  in 
those  days  all  traffic  was  stayed,  you  might  as  well 
enjoy  it.  .  .  . 

All  such  arrangements,  all  such  "fittings  in"  were  a 
pure  delight  to  my  mother.  She  revelled  in  her  dexterity, 
and  revelled  no  less  in  the  multitude  of  her  engagements. 
She  loved,  after  a  busy  day,  to  dine  at  some  political 
house,  and  hear  the  talk  of  the  hour,  and  follow  that  up 
with  some  party  at  the  Foreign  Office,  for  though  she 
cared  very  little  if  at  all  about  political  questions  them- 
selves, she  delighted  in  the  froth  and  bustle  and  move- 
ment. She  was  great  friends  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  though 
she  cared  not  one  atom  about  the  Home  Rule  question, 


166  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

and  he  in  turn  had  the  greatest  appreciation  of  her  wit, 
her  humour  which  would  strike  a  spark  out  of  the  most 
humdrum  of  happenings :  and  I  believe  it  is  authentically 
told  that  when  once  at  Hawarden  there  was  discussion  as 
to  the  identity  of  the  cleverest  woman  in  England,  and 
someone  suggested  my  mother  as  the  fittest  candidate  for 
the  post,  he  said  in  that  impressive  voice,  reinforced  with 
the  pointed  forefinger,  "No,  you're  wrong:  she's  the 
cleverest  woman  in  Europe."  Quite  unfatigued,  she 
would  be  up  and  dressed  in  her  very  oldest  clothes  before 
seven  next  morning,  and  walk  for  a  full  hour  before 
breakfast,  since  the  rest  of  the  day  held  for  her  no  leisure 
for  exercise.  Never  was  there  anyone  so  acutely  observant 
as  she,  and  at  breakfast  there  would  be  some  grotesque  or 
comic  side-show  of  the  streets  for  narration.  Parks  and 
open  places  were  of  no  use  to  her  at  all  in  those  rambles ; 
Lambeth  Walk,  or  the  humours  of  Covent  Garden  Mar- 
ket were  her  diversion,  and  refreshed  by  these  humours 
she  tackled  her  new  and  delightful  day.  Never  by  any 
chance  did  she  go  out  to  lunch,  but  never  by  any  chance 
did  we  lunch  en  famille;  guests  were  invariably  there. 
Even  more  to  her  mind  were  her  dinner-parties,  in  the 
selection  and  arrangement  of  which  she  took  an  infinity  of 
rapturous  trouble,  and  the  bigger  they  were  the  more  I 
think  she  enjoyed  them.  There  was,  of  course,  a  great 
deal  of  clerical  entertainment,  but  half  a  dozen  times  in 
the  season  she  gave  more  secular  dinner-parties  of  about 
thirty  guests,  when  literature  and  science,  and  art  and 
politics,  and  the  great  world  magnificently  assembled. 
And  when  the  last  guest  had  gone,  a  piece  of  invariable 
ritual  was  that  she  with  any  of  us  children  who  were  at 
home,  executed  a  wild  war-dance  all  over  the  drawing- 
room  in  a  sort  of  general  jubilation.    I  remember  Lord 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       167 

Halsbury  coming  back  unexpectedly  to  tell  my  mother 
some  story  which  he  had  forgotten  to  mention,  and  find- 
ing us  all  at  it. 

But  however  full  was  the  day,  my  mother  seemed  pos- 
sessed of  complete  and  unlimited  leisure  for  talk  with 
any  of  us  who  wanted  her.  I  can  remember  no  occasion 
on  which  she  was  too  busy  for  a  talk.  Her  letters  could 
wait;  anything  could  wait,  and  she  would  slew  round 
from  her  writing-table,  saying,  "Hurrah  I  Oh,  this  is 
nice  I"  She  would  listen  alert  and  eager  to  some  infinitesi- 
mal problem,  some  critical  observation,  and  say,  "Now 
tell  me  exactly  why  you  think  that.  I  don't  agree  at  all. 
Let's  have  it  out."  It  seemed  that  nothing  in  the  world 
interested  her  nearly  as  much  as  the  point  in  question, 
and  verily  I  believe  that  it  was  so.  She  projected  her 
whole  self  on  to  it:  she  desired  nothing  so  much,  just 
then,  as  to  put  herself  completely  in  your  place,  and 
realize,  before  she  formed  an  opinion  of  her  own,  pre- 
cisely what  your  opinion  was.  Then  invariably  the  magic 
of  her  sympathy  seized  on  any  point  with  which  she 
agreed,  "Quite  so:  I  see  that,  yes  I  feel  that,"  she  would 
say.  "But  how  about  this?  Let  me  see  if  I  can  put  it 
to  you." 

It  was  no  wonder  that  the  closeness  of  her  special, 
particular  relation  to  each  of  us  was  ever  growing.  The 
primary  desire  of  her  heart  was  to  give  love :  when  it  was 
given  her  (and  who  ever  had  it  in  larger  abundance*?) 
she  welcomed  and  revelled  in  it,  but  her  business  above 
all  was  to  give.  And  her  love  was  no  soft  indulgent 
thing:  there  was  even  an  austerity  in  its  intenseness,  and 
it  burned  with  that  lambent  quality,  which  was  so  char- 
acteristic of  her.  Never  was  anyone  so  like  a  flame  as  she : 
her  light  illuminated  you,  her  ardour  warmed  and  stimu- 


168  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

lated.  Withal,  there  was  never  anyone  who  less  resembled 
a  saint,  for  she  was  much  too  human  to  be  anything  of 
the  kind ;  she  had  no  atom  of  asceticism  in  her,  and  with- 
out being  at  all  artistic  she  adored  beauty. 

Spiritual  beauty  came  first,  for  she  loved  God  more 
than  she  loved  any  of  His  works,  but  how  close  to  her 
heart  was  intellectual  beauty,  things  subtly  and  finely  ' 
observed,  things  humorously  and  delicately  touched! 
How,  too,  she  hated  spiritual  ugliness,  as  expressed  by 
priggishness  with  regard  to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  and 
mental  ugliness  as  expressed  by  conceit  or  narrowness,  and 
hardly  less  did  she  dislike  physical  ugliness.  Her  tones 
would  rise  from  a  calmness  which  she  found  quite  im- 
possible to  maintain,  into  a  crescendo  of  violent  emphasis 
and  capital  letters  as  she  said  something  to  the  following 
effect: 

"Yes,  I  know:  I'm  sure  he's  a  very  good  man,  and 
that's  so  trying,  because  he  is  such  a  prig,  and  always 
does  his  duty,  and,  my  dear,  that  awful  mouth,  and  the 
Beautiful  sentiments  that  come  out  of  it.  Besides  he's 
so  Very,  Very  Plain  I" 

No  one  was  ever  more  beset  with  human  frailties.  She 
was  afraid  of  getting  stout,  and  in  her  diary  recorded 
solemn  vows  that  she  would  not  eat  more  than  two  dishes 
at  dinner,  nor  take  sugar.  Then  came  an  entry,  "Soup, 
fish,  pheasant  and  souffle.  What  a  Pig  I  am!"  .  .  . 
Or  again  if  she  found  herself  in  some  difficulty,  where  a 
precise  statement  of  what  had  really  occurred  would  make 
things  worse,  she  would  say,  "I  shall  have  to  be  very 
diplomatic  about  it,"  and  a  perfectly  well  justified  chorus 
went  up  from  her  irreverent  family,  "That  means  that 
Ma's  going  to  tell  a  lie  about  it."  With  all  her  intense 
spirituality,  she  had  no  use  for  conventional  worship, 


;<£^"*^^ 


^ 


X 


X' 


r^ 


"his  grace"     (a  domestic  caricatube) 


[Page  169 


LAJVIBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       171 

and  I  can  hear  her  say,  on  an  occasion  when  my  father 
was  out,  "We  won't  have  prayers  to-night  for  a  treat." 
Similarly  she  could  never  take  any  emotional  interest 
(and  I  think  gave  up  trying)  in  Synods  and  Pan-Anglican 
Conferences,  and  Bishops'  meetings,  though  she  knew 
that  her  tepidity  about  these  things  that  concerned  my 
father  so  intimately  was  a  distress  to  him.  But  while  he 
drove  on  his  fervent  way  along  the  roads  of  organization, 
tradition,  ritual  and  ecclesiastical  practice,  her  religion 
was  on  quite  other  lines:  prayer  and  meditation  were  the 
solitary  methods  of  it,  and  in  the  world  which  she  de- 
lighted in,  love  and  sympathy.  And  whatever  she  sought 
for  and  gathered  there,  with  all  her  own  temptations  and 
fallings  and  new  resolves,  she  brought  with  humble  con- 
fident hands  and  laid  them  at  the  feet  of  Christ. 

Though  the  beauty  of  living  and  sentient  beings — 
whether  in  the  region  of  the  soul,  the  mind  or  the  body — 
made  so  irresistible  an  appeal  to  her,  she  never  really 
cared  for  the  beauty  of  plants  6r  trees  or  skies  or  scenery. 
Just  there  a  firm  frontier-line  was  drawn  round  the  terri- 
tory of  her  real  sympathies,  and  it  accorded  very  fitly  with 
her  lack  of  touch  with  mere  organizations.  Just  as  she 
cared  not  two  straws  for  the  Pan-Anglican  Conference, 
yet  delighted  in  the  human  members  of  it,  so,  when  stand- 
ing in  front  of  the  west  fa9ade  of,  say  Rheims  Cathedral, 
or  looking  across  from  the  Riffel  Alp  to  the  Matterhom, 
her  real  attention  would  not  be  devoted  to  these  silent 
sublimities,  but  much  rather  to  a  cat  blinking  in  the  sun, 
or  a  sparrow  building  in  the  eaves.  Things  must  move 
or  think  or  form  opinions  or  commit  voluntary  actions 
to  enchant  her,  and  in  the  Swiss  holidays  which  often 
followed  the  end  of  the  London  season,  I  doubt  if  she  ever 
looked  with  eagerness  or  wonder  at  the  Matterhom,  ex- 


172  OUR  FAIMILY  AFFAIRS 

cept  on  the  day  when  she  knew  that  one  of  her  sons  was 
somewhere  near  the  summit  in  the  early  morning.  On 
such  another  day  her  eye  was  glued  with  enthusiasm  on 
the  Rothhorn  because  two  of  us  were  making  the  ascent, 
but  towards  the  Rothhorn  in  itself,  or  towards  the  wav- 
ing of  poplars,  or  the  flame  of  a  sunset,  she  never  felt  the 
emotional  heart-leap.  Thus,  when  August  in  Switzerland 
or  elsewhere  was  over,  the  ensuing  five  months  or  so  at 
Addington,  with  its  delights  for  us  of  shooting  and  riding 
and  all  the  genial  thrill  of  country  life,  made  no  appeal 
to  her.  As  far  as  they  affected  us,  she  threw  herself  into 
them,  but  at  any  moment,  she  would  have  chosen  to  be 
in  the  swim  and  the  thick  of  things  again,  and  have  taken 
those  early  morning  walks  down  the  Lambeth  Road  with 
the  interest  of  iishshops  and  costermongers  to  enlighten 
her,  rather  than  walk  under  the  flaming  autumn  beech 
trees,  or  see  the  frail  white  children  of  the  spring  begin- 
ning to  prick  through  the  thawing  earth  of  January. 
There  had  to  be  a  beating  heart  in  that  which  enchained 
her;  she  could  not  bother  about  primroses.  That  may 
have  been  a  limitation,  but  such  limitation  as  that  merely 
stored  her  force  of  sympathy  and  discernment  towards 
the  rest.  She  did  not  attempt  to  let  it  dribble  out  in 
exiguous  channels,  but  conserved  the  whole  vigour  of  it 
for  the  supply  of  the  mansions  where  her  treasure  and 
her  heart  lay.  In  the  country  also,  she  was  a  far  more 
defenceless  victim  against  the  one  strong  foe  of  her 
triumphal  banners,  and  that  foe  was  fear. 

In  real  trouble,  especially  when  the  trouble  was  con- 
cerned with  those  she  loved  best,  she  walked  boldly;  no 
one  faced  the  large  sorrows  and  bereavements  that  fell 
to  her  destiny  with  a  more  courageous  front.  The  mag- 
nitude called  forth  the  faith  which  unwaveringly  sup- 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       173 

ported  her,  but  when  all  seemed  peaceful  and  prosperous, 
she  was  often  a  prey  to  acute  imaginative  apprehensions. 
She  could  not  bear,  for  instance,  to  see  us  all  start  out 
riding  together,  and  when  the  announcement  came  that 
the  half-dozen  of  riding  horses  were  at  the  front  door,  she 
went  back  to  her  room  on  the  other  side  of  the  house. 
Certainly  she  had  some  slight  basis  for  her  feelings,  for 
among  those  steeds  there  was  a  bad  bucker  and  a  rearer. 
None  of  the  riders  minded  that  in  the  slightest,  and  away 
went  the  cavalcade  at  a  violent  gallop  up  the  long  slope 
of  turf  in  front  of  the  house  with  "Braemar"  in  the  shape 
of  a  comma,  and  "Quentin"  playing  the  piano  in  the  air 
with  his  forelegs,  and  "Ajax"  kicking  up  behind,  and 
"Peggy"  going  sideways,  just  because  my  father  had 
mounted  first  and  smacked  "Columba"  over  the  rump 
while  the  rest  of  us  were  betwixt  and  between  the  gravel 
and  the  saddle.  There  were  hurdles  stuck  up  on  the 
slope,  and  Braemer,  shrilly  squealing,  bucked  over  the 
first  and  Ajax  ran  out,  and  Peggy  trod  solemnly  on  the 
top  of  one,  and  Quentin  still  hopping  on  his  hind  legs 
refused  and  was  whacked,  and  my  father  went  pounding 
on  ahead  as  we  rocketed  after  him.  He  was  not  a  good 
horseman,  but  he  had  no  knowledge  of  fear,  and,  though 
he  avoided  the  hurdles,  he  went  tobogganing  down  the 
steep  sides  of  Croham  Hurst  with  Columba  slipping  and 
sliding  on  the  pebbles  and  putting  her  foot  into  rabbit 
holes,  while  her  rider  with  slack  rein  enjoyed  it  all  enor- 
mously. In  the  meantime  my  mother  had  dreadful  visions 
of  two  or  three  of  us  being  brought  back  on  hurdles,  and 
carried  into  the  house.  But  exactly  at  that  point  her 
essential  courage  knocked  her  nervousness  on  the  head, 
for  she  would  not  at  any  price  have  had  any  one  of  us 
not  go  out  riding.    Only,  she  didn't  want  to  see  the  start. 


174.  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

It  was  this  vague  fear  that  was  her  enemy  all  her  life,, 
and  it  could  pounce  on  any  quarry.  She  did  not  really 
believe  that  the  corpses  of  her  children  were  soon  to  be 
brought  back  to  her,  any  more  than  she  really  believed 
that  when  my  father  had  a  bad  cold,  it  was  speedily  to  de- 
velop into  double  pneumonia,  but  she  was  prey  in  imagi- 
nation to  these  disastrous  possibilities.  Hardly  ever  did 
she  suffer  under  them  as  regards  herself;  once  only  do  I 
remember  her  conjuring  up  a  personal  spectre.  On  that 
occasion  she  got  the  idea  that  she  was  going  to  die  before 
the  end  of  the  month,  a  prognostication  which  she  un- 
fortunately made  public.  Thereupon,  as  the  days  went 
by,  some  one  of  her  children  hurried  from  the  tea-table 
every  evening,  and  stood  spectre-like  in  the  corner  of  the 
room,  and  in  a  sepulchral  voice  said,  "Nine  days  now" : 
or  "Eight  days  now,"  until  the  fatal  and  last  evening 
of  her  prophetic  intuition  arrived.  The  "To-night"  was 
received  with  roars  of  laughter,  and  she  was  in  brilliant 
health  and  spirits  next  morning,  when  she  ought  to  have 
been  a  corpse.  She  laughed  at  her  fears  herself  (which 
is  just  the  reason  why  I  treat  them  humorously  now)  but, 
for  all  her  laughter,  they  were  year  after  year  a  miserable 
bugbear  to  her,  mostly  and  mainly  during  the  leisurely 
months  at  Addington.  Oftenest  they  were  quite  vague, 
but  couched  to  pounce  on  any  excuse  for  definiteness :  if 
my  father  had  a  cold  she  would  evoke  the  image  of  pneu- 
monia, if  he  was  tired  she  would  conjure  up  visions  of  a 
breakdown.  She  kept  these  groundless  imaginings  to  her- 
self, and  no  one  could  ever  have  guessed  how  often  she 
was  a  victim  to  them,  or  how  heavily  they  rode  her.  They 
did  not,  except  quite  occasionally,  get  between  her  and 
the  sunlight,  for  she  forced  them  into  the  shadow,  caught 
them  and  shut  them  in  cupboards,  steadily  and  continu- 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       175 

ally  disowned  them.  And  when  any  real  trouble  came 
they  haunted  her  no  more ;  she  rose  serene  and  faithful  to 
any  great  occasion,  welcoming  it  almost,  as  she  had  done 
with  Martin's  death,  as  a  direct  dealing  from  God,  receiv- 
ing it  sacramentally. 

I  wonder  if  children  ever  ran  so  breathless  a  race  in 
pursuit  of  manifold  interests  and  enjoyments  as  did  we 
in  those  years  when  our  ages  ranged  from  the  early  twen- 
ties to  the  early  teens,  and  the  Christmas  holidays  in  par- 
ticular, brought  us  together.  One  year,  about  1884,  a 
snowfall  was  succeeded  by  a  week's  frost,  and  that  by 
another  week  of  icy  fog,  and  the  foggy  week  I  look  back 
on  as  having  given  us  the  fullest  scope  of  hazardous  ac- 
tivity in  hopeless  circumstances,  for  shooting  and  riding 
were  impossible.  We  made  a  toboggan-run  which  soon 
became  unmitigated  ice,  down  a  steep  hill  in  the  park 
among  Scotch  firs  that  loomed  dim  and  menacing  through 
the  mist.  Half-way  down  the  hill,  just  where  the  pace 
was  swiftest,  and  the  toboggan  skidding  most  insanely, 
grew  one  of  these  firs  close  to  the  track,  and  on  the  other 
side  was  a  bramble-bush.  From  the  top  you  could  not 
see  this  gut  at  all,  and  with  eyes  peering  agonizedly 
through  the  thick  air  you  waited  for  the  appearance  of 
this  opening  somewhere  ahead.  Sometimes  you  saw  so 
late  that  the  bramble-bush  or  the  Scotch  fir  must  inevit- 
ably receive  you,  and  there  was  just  time  to  slide  off 
behind,  be  rolled  on  the  hard  glazed  snow,  and  hear  the 
plunge  of  the  toboggan  in  the  bramble-bush,  or  its  crash 
against  the  Scotch  fir.  If  you  got  through  safely,  a  second 
and  more  open  slope  succeeded  and  you  pursued  your 
way  across  the  path  between  the  church  and  the  house, 
and  bumped  into  the  kitchen-garden  fence.    Bruised  and 


176  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

unwearied  we  took  the  injured  toboggans  to  the  estate 
carpenter,  whose  time  at  Christmas  must  have  been  chiefly- 
occupied  with  repairing  these  fractures,  and  played  golf 
over  the  nine  holes  which  we  had  made  along  the  slope 
in  front  of  the  house,  on  the  snow  and  in  a  fog.  The 
greens,  which  .were  about  as  large  as  tablecloths,  had 
been  swept,  and  the  boy  who  had  the  honour  whacked  his 
ball  in  the  conjectured  direction,  and  ran  like  mad  after 
it.  When  he  had  found  it,  he  shouted  and  his  opponent 
drove  in  the  direction  of  his  voice.  If  he  sliced  or  pulled, 
he  too  ran  like  mad  in  the  conjectured  direction;  if  he 
drove  straight  his  ball  was  probably  marked  by  the  first 
driver.  The  thrillingest  excitement  was  when,  driving 
first,  you  topped  your  ball  or  spouted  it  in  the  air,  for 
then  you  crouched  as  you  heard  the  crack  of  the  second 
ball,  which  whizzed  by  you  unseen.  Football  in  the  top 
passage  with  bedroom  doors  for  goals  ushered  in  lunch 
and  after  lunch  we  skated  on  dreadful  skates  called 
"Acmes"  or  "Caledonians,"  which  clipped  themselves  on 
to  the  heels  and  soles  of  the  boot,  and  came  off  and 
slithered  across  the  ice  at  the  moment  when  you  proposed 
to  execute  a  turn.  Hugh  despised  my  figure-skating  (and 
I'm  sure  I  don't  wonder)  and  christened  himself  a  speed 
skater.  The  pond  was  of  no  great  extent  and  fringed  on 
one  side  by  tall  rhododendron  thickets,  into  which  he 
crashed  when  unable  to  negotiate  a  corner. 

The  evening  closing  in  early  was  the  dawn  of  the  in- 
tellectual labours  of  the  day.  The  Saturday  Magazine 
made  frequent  appearances,  burgeoning  like  Aaron's  rod 
into  miraculous  blossom  of  prose  and  poetry:  between- 
whiles  Arthur  composed  voluntaries  to  be  played  on  the 
organ  in  the  chapel  at  prayers,  Nellie  studied  the  violin, 
Hugh  produced  a  marionette  theatre,  and  wrote  a  highly 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       177 

original  play  for  it,  called  The  Sandy  Desert;  or^  Where 
is  the  Archbishop?  and  Maggie  made  oil  pictures  of  her 
family  of  Persian  cats.  Once  at  least  during  Christmas 
holidays  we  all  jointly  wrote  a  play:  it  was  The  Spiritual- 
ist one  year,  in  which  there  was  a  slashing  exposure  of 
mediums;  another  year  we  dramatized  The  Rose  and  the 
Ring  in  operatic  form  with  original  lyrics  set  to  popular 
tunes.  With  the  exception  of  Nellie,  our  voices  were 
singularly  inefficient  and  completely  untrained,  which 
was  part  of  the  fun  of  it.  To  these  plays  the  neigh- 
bourhood was  invited,  and  all  the  servants  and  lodge- 
keepers  formed  a  solid  mass  at  the  back.  At  one  of  them, 
Arthur  for  some  reason,  must  be  disguised  as  a  young 
woman,  six  feet  two  high,  with  a  yard  or  so  of  trousers 
showing  below  the  skirt.  This  impersonation  made  a 
kitchen-maid  laugh  so  hysterically,  that  the  play  had  to 
pause  while  she  was  taken  out  by  two  housemaids,  and  her 
yells  died  away  as  she  retreated  down  the  back-stairs. 

Life  in  those  holidays  was  an  orgy,  celebrated  in  an 
atmosphere  of  absolutely  ceaseless  argument  and  discus- 
sion. Every  question  rose  to  boiling-point:  for  while 
we  regarded  each  other  with  strong  and  quite  unsenti- 
mental affection  we  were  violently  critical  of  each  other. 
We  drew  biting  caricatures  of  my  father  going  to  sleep 
after  tea,  of  my  mother  keenly  observ^ant  above  and  not 
through  her  spectacles,  of  Hugh  falling  off  Ajax,  of  any 
ludicrous  and  humorous  posture.  But  above  all  it  was 
writing  that  most  enthralled  us,  and  innumerable  were 
the  quires  of  sermon-paper  that  yielded  up  their  fair  white 
lives  to  our  scribblings.  These  were  now  beginning  to 
enter  a  more  professional  arena  than  the  Saturday  Maga- 
zine; Nellie,  then  at  Lady  Margaret's  Hall  in  Oxford, 
had,   before   she   was   twenty,   published   an   article  on 


178  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Crabbe  in  Temple  Bar;  Arthur,  a  year  or  two  older,  had 
written  his  first  book,  Arthur  Hamilton,  in  the  form  of 
an  imaginary  memoir,  and  Maggie  and  I  were  in  the 
throes  of  a  joint  story,  in  which  I  can  perceive  the  infancy 
of  a  novel  called  Dodo.  This  was  abandoned  before  com- 
pletion, but  in  a  moraine  of  forgotten  dustinesses,  I  came 
across  some  few  pages  of  it  the  other  day  and  really  felt 
that  there  was  some  notion  in  it,  some  conscious  attempt 
anyhow,  to  convey  character  by  means  of  conversation 
rather  than  by  analysis,  an  achievement  in  the,  direction 
of  which,  in  spite  of  dispiriting  results,  I  am  still  grubbing 
away.  There  certainly,  in  that  heap  of  ancient  manu- 
script fortuitously  preserved,  was  the  conscious  striving 
after  psychical  dialogue,  in  which  the  interlocutors  re- 
vealed themselves.  Trivial  as  might  be  the  personalities 
revealed,  the  idea  of  the  excited  authors  was  to  avoid 
narrated  analysis,  and  to  convict  and  justify  their  char- 
acters out  of  their  own  mouths.  There  was  a  crisis  of 
creativeness  in  the  writing  of  it,  for  we  firmly  and  de- 
signedly intended  that  a  certain  middle-aged  lady,  at 
whose  feet  everybody  else  fell  flat  in  adoration  of  her 
tact  and  her  sympathy  and  her  comprehension,  should 
"be"  my  mother.  But,  such  is  the  waywardness  of  ideal- 
istic portraiture,  we  found,  about  Chapter  VI,  that  though 
she  was  already  supposedly  installed  on  the  throne  of 
tact  and  comprehension,  before  which  everybody  else 
bowed  the  knee,  she  had  not  justified  the  part  which  we 
had  cast  for  her,  for  she  really  had  said  little  more  than 
"I  feel  so  deeply  for  you,"  or  "Pass  the  mustard."  We 
were  determined  that  she  should  reveal  her  incomparable 
humanity  by  the  sympathetic  dialogues  in  which  we  en- 
gaged her,  but  she  was  so  tactful  that  she  never  said  any- 
thing at  all  that  bore  on  the  problems  which  were  sub- 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       179 

mitted  to  her.  In  the  book  to  which  I  have  alluded,  she 
certainly  appears  as  "Mrs.  Vivian,"  who,  as  may  faintly 
be  remembered,  is  supposed  to  be  possessed  of  super- 
human tact  and  insight,  taking  painful  situations  with 
calming  and  yet  exhilarating  effect.  For  the  satisfaction 
of  the  curious,  it  may  be  stated  that  Mrs,  Vivian  was  the 
one  live  model  in  the  book  and  was  completely  unrecog- 
nisable. When  first  we  enthusiastically  scribbled  at  its 
earlier  incarnation,  my  sister  and  I  were  at  the  ages  of 
nineteen  and  seventeen,  and  for  the  very  reason,  namely, 
that  we  thought  of  my  mother  in  our  adoring  limning 
of  her,  the  presentment  is  not  only  unlike  her,  but  unlike 
anybody  at  all. 

We  went  to  Addington  for  a  few  weeks  at  Easter,  and 
the  sojourn  then  was,  according  to  my  mother,  of  the 
nature  of  a  picnic.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  not 
really  anything  very  picnicky  about  it;  the  drawing-room, 
it  is  true,  was  not  used,  but  we  managed  with  the  ante- 
room, the  Chinese  room,  the  schoolroom,  my  father's 
study  and  her  own  room,  by  way  of  sitting-rooms,  and 
perhaps  part  of  the  household  remained  at  Lambeth, 
But  to  her  vivid  sense,  to  her  delight  of  using  all  things 
to  the  utmost,  this  constituted  a  very  informal  way  of 
life,  for  when  she  was  running  a  house,  everything  must 
be,  in  its  own  scale,  spick-and-span  and  complete.  You 
might,  for  instance,  dine  on  bread  and  cheese  and  a  glass 
of  beer,  but  the  cheese  must  be  the  best  cheese,  the  bread 
of  the  crispest,  and  the  beer  must  be  brimmed  with  froth. 
Short  of  completeness  and  perfection,  whatever  your 
scale  was,  you  were  roughing  it,  you  were  picnicking.  She 
did  not  at  all  dislike  picnicking,  but  It  Was  picnicking, 
and  why  not  say  so?  For  herself,  with  her  passion  for 
people  (like  Dr.  Johnson  she  thought  that  one  green  field 


180  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

was  like  another  green  field,  and  would  prefer  a  walk 
down  Fleet  Street)  she  would  sooner  have  stopped  in  Lon- 
don, but  my  father  needed  this  break  in  the  six  months  of 
his  busy  London  life.  But  to  his  volcanic  energy  and 
vitality,  such  a  holiday  was  of  the  nature  of  a  compulsion 
and  a  medicine  rather  than  an  enjoyment.  In  the  long 
run  he  was  refreshed  by  it,  but  the  getting  out  of  the 
shafts  was  always  trying  to  him,  and  usually  resulted  in 
a  fit  of  depression,  such  as  I  have  described  before.  When 
he  was  very  hard  worked,  he  never  suffered  from  this; 
it  was  when  he  was  obliged  to  rest  that  these  irritable 
glooms  descended  on  him,  and  I  particularly  connect 
them,  during  these  years,  with  the  Easter  holiday.  All 
the  time,  as  he  once  told  me  when  talking  of  them,  he 
would  be  struggling  and  agonizing  to  get  his  head  out  of 
those  deep  waters,  but  was  unable  to  until  the  nervous 
reaction  had  spent  itself,  and  the  pendulum  swung  back 
again.  By  now  we  children  had  begun  to  understand  that, 
and  though  this  mood  of  his  was  a  damper  on  mirth  and 
generally  an  awful  bore,  we  no  longer  feared  him  when 
he  was  like  that  but  "carried  on,"  very  sorry  for  him, 
and  sincerely  hoping  he  would  be  better  next  day.  The 
person  who  felt  it  most  was  undoubtedly  my  mother :  he 
was  miserable  and  she  knew  it,  and  knew  the  pathos  of 
his  futile  strivings  to  get  rid  of  it,  and  her  picnic  was  a 
melancholy  and  anxious  one  till  that  cloud  lifted.  Often, 
however,  she  and  my  father  went  to  Florence  for  Easter, 
where  they  stayed  with  Lady  Crawford  at  the  Villa  Pal- 
mieri,  and  of  all  the  holiday  sojoumings  it  was  that  which 
he  enjoyed  most  keenly.  He  was  absolutely  indefatig- 
able where  churches  or  sacred  art  were  concerned,  because 
of  the  cause  which  had  inspired  painter  and  architect. 
To  him  the  achievement  for  which  the  architect  builded, 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       181 

the  sculptor  chiselled,  the  musicians  composed,  and  the 
artist  painted,  must  be  the  palpable  and  direct  service 
of  God,  and  just  as  he  would  gaze  in  genuine  rapture  at 
a  second-rate  Madonna,  whereas  a  portrait  or  even  a 
Primavera  would  leave  him  cold,  so,  without  any  knowl- 
edge or  appreciation  of  music  he  would  listen  to  Handel's 
Messiah^  while  a  Wagner  opera,  or  a  symphony  by 
Beethoven,  had  he  ever  listened  or  heard  such,  would  have 
been  meaningless  to  him.  Of  ecclesiastical  architecture, 
again,  its  periods  or  its  characteristics,  he  had  a  profound 
knowledge,  but  whether  a  house  was  Elizabethan  or 
Georgian  was  a  matter  of  much  smaller  interest  to  him. 
He  did  not  truly  care,  to  put  it  broadly,  who  built  a 
column  and  when  and  how,  or  painted  a  picture  and  when 
and  how,  so  long  as  those  monuments  of  art  were  only 
directed  towards  human  and  aesthetic  enjoyment.  The 
natural  works  of  God,  the  woods  at  Addington,  the  moun- 
tain ranges  of  Switzerland,  he  admiringly  loved  as  being 
in  themselves  direct  divine  expressions,  but  if  the  work 
of  man  insinuated  itself,  he  liked  it  in  proportion  as 
it  was  religious  in  its  aims. 

One  exception  he  made,  and  that  was  in  favour  of 
Greek  and  Roman  antiquities  and  the  language  of  the 
classics,  and  I  am  sure  he  enjoyed  making  a  translation 
of  some  English  poem  into  Virgilian  hexameters  or 
Sophoclean  iambics  fully  as  much  as  he  enjoyed  the  origi- 
nal version.  Latin  and  Greek,  especially  Greek,  were  to 
him  only  a  little  below  the  Pentecostal  tongues:  of  all 
human  achievements  they  were  the  noblest  flowers.  To 
him  a  classical  education  was  the  only  education :  he  rated 
a  boy's  abilities  largely  by  his  power  to  translate  and  to 
imitate  classical  lore,  and  to  wander  himself  in  these 
fields  was  his  chiefest  intellectual  recreation.    He  loved 


182  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

to  unpack,  so  to  speak,  some  Greek  word  compounded 
with  prepositions,  and  insist  on  the  value  of  each,  over- 
loading the  dissected  members  of  it  with  meanings  that 
never  conceivably  entered  into  the  mind  of  its  author,  and 
his  own  style  in  weighed  and  deliberate  composition  was 
founded  on  the  model  of  these  interpretations;  the 
sentences  were  overloaded  with  meanings  beyond  what 
the  language  could  bear;  he  packed  his  phrases  till  they 
creaked.  But  highest  of  all  in  the  beloved  language,  with 
a  great  gulf  fixed  below  it  and  above  the  masterpieces  of 
classical  literature,  came  the  New  Testament,  which  he 
studied  and  interpreted  to  us  as  under  a  microscope.  That 
eager  reverence  was  like  a  lover's  adoration :  his  interpre- 
tations might  be  fanciful,  and  such  as  he  would  never 
have  made  in  any  other  commentings,  but  here  his  search 
for  hidden  meanings  in  simple  phrases  had  just  that/ 
quality  of  tender  and  exquisite  scrutiny.  The  subject  of 
this  study  was  his  life,  and  the  smallest  of  its  details  must 
be  searched  out,  and  squeezed  to  yield  a  drop  more  of 
sacred  essence.  .  .  .  On  any  other  topic  he  would  have 
criticized  the  Hellenistic  Greek,  as  falling  far  below 
classical  standards,  but,  as  it  was,  he  accepted  it  as  verb- 
ally inspired,  and  no  enquiry  was  too  minute.  Rather 
curiously,  collations  of  differing  texts  did  not  engage 
him,  nor  did  he  touch  on  Higher  Criticism.  The  text  of 
his  own  Greek  Testamicnt  was  all  that  concerned  him, 
there  was  the  whole  matter,  and  on  to  it  he  turned  the 
full  light  of  his  intellect  and  his  enthusiasm,  without 
criticism  but  minutely  and  lovingly  poring  over  it,  as  it 
actually  and  traditionally  was. 

From  Monday  morning  until  Saturday  night  these 
weeks  at  Addington,  especially  at  Christmas,  were  to  us 
a  whirl  of  delightful  activities  from  the  moment  that 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       183 

chapel  service  and  Bible  lesson,  were  over  in  the  morning, 
till  evening  service  at  ten  o'clock  at  night.  But  Sunday 
was  a  day  set  so  much  apart  from  the  rest  that  it  hardly 
seemed  to  belong  to  Addington  at  all.  There  was  early 
communion  in  the  chapel,  unless  it  was  celebrated  after 
the  eleven  o'clock  service  in  church;  morning  service  in 
church  was  succeeded  by  lunch,  lunch  by  a  slow  family 
walk  during  which  my  father  read  George  Herbert  to  us ; 
the  walk  was  succeeded  by  a  Bible  reading  with  him,  and 
then  came  tea.  After  tea  was  evening  service  in  church, 
and  after  Sunday  supper,  he  read  the  Pilgrim^ s  Progress 
aloud  until  we  had  compline  in  chapel.  To  fill  up  inter- 
vals we  might  read  certain  Sunday  books,  the  more  ma- 
ture successors  of  Bishop  Heber  and  The  Rocky  Island 
and  Agathos.  No  shoal  of  relaxation  emerged  from  the 
roaring  devotional  flood ;  if  at  meals  the  conversation  be- 
came too  secular,  it  was  brought  back  into  appropriate 
channels;  there  was  even  a  set  of  special  graces  before 
and  after  meals  to  be  used  on  Sunday,  consisting  of  short 
versicles  and  responses  quite  bewildering  to  any  guest 
staying  in  the  house.  No  games  of  any  sort  or  kind  were 
played,  not  even  those  which  like  lawn-tennis  or  golf 
entailed  no  labour  on  the  part  of  servants.  However 
fair  a  snow  covered  Fir  Mount,  no  toboggan  that  day 
made  its  perilous  descent,  and  though  the  pond  might  be 
spread  with  delectable  ice  no  skates  profaned  its  satin  on 
the  Day  of  Rest.  The  Day  of  Rest  in  fact,  owing  chiefly 
to  this  prohibition  on  reasonable  relaxation,  became  a 
day  of  pitiless  fatigue.  We  hopped,  like  "ducks  and 
drakes,"  from  one  religious  exercise  to  another,  relent- 
lessly propelled. 

To  my  father,  I  make  no  doubt,  with  his  intensely  de- 
votional mind,  this  strenuous  Sunday  was  a  time  of  re- 


184  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

freshment.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  he  often  went  to 
sleep  in  church,  and  if  on  very  hot  Sundays,  the  walk 
was  abandoned,  and  we  read  aloud  in  turns  from  some 
saintly  chronicle,  under  the  big  cedar  on  the  lawn,  not 
only  he,  but  every  member  of  the  family,  except  the 
reader  (we  read  in  turn),  went  to  sleep  too.  But  he  dozed 
off  to  the  chronicle  of  St.  Francis  and  came  back  to  it 
again;  nothing  jarred.  Thus  ordered,  Sunday  was  a  per- 
fect day  for  one  of  his  temperament;  no  work  was  done 
on  it,  no  week-day  breeze  ruffled  its  devotional  stillness, 
but  his  appreciation  of  it  postulated  that  all  of  us  should 
share  to  the  full  in  its  spiritual  benefits.  He  did  not  be- 
lieve that  for  himself  Sunday  could  be  spent  more  profit- 
ably, and  so  we  were  all  swept,  regardless  of  its  private 
effect  on  us,  into  the  tide.  What  he  did  not  allow  for 
was  that  on  other  temperaments,  that  which  so  aptly  ful- 
filled the  desires  of  his  own  produced  a  totally  different 
impression.  That  day,  for  us,  was  one  of  crushing  bore- 
dom and  unutterable  fatigue.  Certain  humorous  gleams 
occasionally  relieved  the  darkness,  as  when  the  devil 
entered  into  me  on  one  occasion  when  Lives  of  the  Saints 
came  to  me  by  rotation,  for  reading  aloud.  There  was 
the  serene  sunlight  outside  the  shade  of  the  cedar,  posi- 
tively gilding  the  tennis  court,  there  was  the  croquet  lawn 
starving  for  the  crack  of  balls,  and  there  too,  underneath 
the  cedar  was  my  somnolent  family,  Hugh  with  swoony 
eyes,  laden  with  sleep,  Nellie  and  Maggie  primly  and 
decorously  listening,  their  eyelids  closed,  like  Miss 
Matty's,  because  they  listened  better  so,  and  my  father, 
for  whom  and  by  whom  this  treat  was  arranged,  with  head 
thrown  back  and  mouth  nakedly  open.  .  .  .  And  then 
came  Satan,  or  at  least  Puck.  ...  I  read  four  lines  of 
the  page  to  which  we  had  penetrated,  then  read  a  few 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       185 

sentences  out  of  the  page  that  had  already  been  read. 
Deftly  and  silently,  but  keeping  a  prudent  finger  in  the 
proper  place,  I  turned  over  a  hundred  pages,  and  droned 
a  paragraph  about  a  perfectly  different  saint.  Swiftly 
turning  back  I  read  some  few  lines  out  of  the  introduction 
to  the  whole  volume,  and  then,  sending  prudence  to  the 
winds,  found  the  end  of  the  chapter  on  which  we  were 
engaged.  I  gave  them  a  little  more  about  St.  Catherine 
of  Siena,  a  little  more  from  the  introduction,  then  in  case 
anyone  happened  to  be  awake  read  the  concluding  sen- 
tences of  the  chapter  about  St.  Francis  and  stopped. 

The  cessation  of  voice  caused  Nellie  to  awake,  and  with 
an  astounding  hypocrisy,  subsequently  brought  home  to 
her,  she  exclaimed: 

"Oh,  how  interesting!" 

Her  voice  aroused  my  father.  There  we  all  were  sit- 
ting under  the  cedar,  reading  about  St.  Francis.  Hugh 
had  awoke,  Maggie  had  awoke:  it  was  a  peaceful  de- 
votional Sunday  afternoon. 

"Wonderful  I"  he  said.    "Is  that  the  end,  Fred?' 

"Yes,  that's  all,"  said  Fred. 

Fred  was  also  a  passive  actor  in  another  Sunday 
humour.  My  father  had  noticed  in  me  a  certain  restless- 
ness at  readings,  some  twitching  of  the  limbs  at  a  Bible 
lesson,  or  whatnot,  and  in  order  to  confirm  me  in  the 
right  practice  of  the  day,  had  looked  out  a  book  in  his 
library  about  Sunday,  which  he  recommended  me  to  read, 
without  having  sufficiently  ascertained  the  contents  of  it 
himself.  Judge  of  my  rapture  when  I  found  a  perfectly 
convincing  chapter,  showing  how  the  sad,  joyless,  unre- 
laxed  English  Sunday  was  purely  an  invention  of  Puri- 
tan times.  My  father  had  given  me  the  book  to  convince 
me  of  the  antique  sanctity  of  the  Addington  use:    the 


186  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

book  told  me  that  from  the  patristic  times  onwards,  no 
such  idea  of  Sunday  as  we  religiously  practised  had  ever 
entered  into  the  heads  of  Christians,  or  had  ever  dawned 
on  the  world  until  the  sourness  of  Puritans  robbed  the 
day  of  its  traditional  joy.  It  had  been  a  day  of  festa,  of 
relaxation  from  the  tedious  round  of  business,  and  all  the 
faithful  dressed  themselves  in  their  best  clothes  for  fun, 
and  village  sports  were  held,  and  hospitality  enlivened 
the  drab  week.  Sure  enough  they  went  to  church  in  the 
morning,  and  after  that  abandoned  themselves  to  jollity. 
With  suppressed  giggles  I  flew  to  my  mother's  room  to 
tell  her  the  result  of  this  investigation,  and  she  steered  a 
course  so  wonderful  that  not  even  then  could  I  chart  it. 
Her  sympathetic  amusement  I  knew  was  all  mine,  but 
somehow  she  abandoned  no  whit  of  her  loyalty  to  my 
father's  purpose  in  giving  me  the  book.  I  had  imagined 
myself  (with  rather  timorous  glee,  for  which  I  wanted  her 
support)  pronouncing  sentence  on  his  Sunday  upon  the 
very  evidence  which  he  had  given  me  to  judge  it  by,  but 
some  consummate  stroke  of  tact  on  my  mother's  part  made 
all  that  to  be  quite  out  of  the  question.  How  she  did  it  I 
have  no  idea,  but  surely  the  very  test  of  tact  lies  in  the 
fact  that  you  don't  know  how  it  is  done.  Tact  explained 
ceases  to  be  tact,  and  degenerates  into  reason  on  the  one 
hand  or  futility  on  the  other.  Certainly  I  never  con- 
fronted my  father  with  this  evidence,  and  Sunday  went 
on  precisely  as  usual.  Sometimes  Hugh  and  I  played 
football  in  the  top  passage,  but  you  mightn't  kick  hard 
for  fear  of  detected  reverberations  through  the  skylight 
of  the  central  hall. 

There  is  a  play  by  some  Italian  dramatist,  which  I 
once  saw  Duse  act:  perhaps  it  is  by  D'Annunzio,  but  I 


LAMBETH  AND  ADDINGTON       187 

cannot  identify  it.  In  the  second  act  anyhow,  the  cur- 
tain went  up  on  Duse,  alone  on  the  stage.  She  wrote  a 
letter,  she  put  some  flowers  in  a  vase  without  speech, 
and  still  without  speech,  she  opened  a  window  at  the 
back,  and  leaned  out  of  it.  She  paused  long  with  her 
back  to  the  audience,  and  then  turning  round  again  said, 
half  below  her  breath,  "Aprile."  After  that  the  action 
of  the  play  proceeded  but  not  till,  in  that  long  pause  and 
that  one  word,  she  had  given  us  the  magic  of  spring. 
.  .  .  Not  otherwise,  but  just  so,  were  those  Addington 
holidays,  when  I  was  sixteen  and  seventeen,  my  April, 
and  thus  the  magic  of  spring  in  those  seasons  of  Christ- 
mas and  Easter  and  September  came  to  me.  Bulbs  and 
seeds  buried  in  my  ground  began  to  spike  the  earth,  and 
the  soft  buds  and  leaves  to  burst  their  woolly  sheaths. 
It  was  the  time  for  the  rooting  up,  in  that  spring-garden- 
ing, of  certain  weeds;  it  was  the  time  also  of  planting 
the  seedlings  which  should  flower  later,  and  of  grafting 
fresh  slips  on  to  a  stem  that  was  forming  fibre  in  the  place 
of  soft  sappy  shoots.  Above  all  it  was  the  time  of  re- 
ceiving more  mature  and  indelible  impressions,  and  there 
is  scarcely  anything  which  in  later  life  I  have  loved  or 
hated,  or  striven  for  or  avoided  that  is  not  derivable  from 
some  sprig  of  delight  or  distaste  planted  during  those 
seasons  of  first  growth.  Childhood  and  earlier  boyhood 
were  more  of  a  greenhouse,  where  early  growths  were 
nurtured  in  a  warmed  windlessness;  now  they  were 
pricked  out  and  put  in  the  beds,  where  they  had  to  leam 
the  robustness  which  would  make  them  resist  the  inclem- 
encies of  a  less  sheltered  life.  Some  died,  scorched  by  the 
sun  or  battered  by  the  rain ;  the  rest,  I  suppose,  had  enough 
vitality  to  make  sun  and  rain  alike  serve  their  growth. 
Above  all  it  was  the  time  of  learning  to  enjoy,  no  longer 


188  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

in  the  absolutely  unreflective  manner  of  a  child,  but  in  a 
manner  to  some  extent  reasoned  and  purposed.  Some 
kind  of  philosophy,  some  conscious  digestive  process  be- 
gan to  stir  below  mere  receptivity.  I  looked  not  only  at 
what  the  experiences  with  which  I  fed  the  lusty  appetites 
of  life  were  at  the  moment,  but  at  the  metabolism  they 
would  undergo  when  I  had  eaten  them.  But  of  all  mental 
habits  then  forming,  the  one  for  which  I  most  bless  those 
lovely  years,  was  the  habit  of  enjoyment,  of  looking  for 
(and  finding)  in  every  environment  some  pleasure  and 
interest.  That  habit,  no  doubt,  with  all  our  games,  our 
collections,  our  scribblings  had  long  been  churned  at: 
about  now  it  solidified.  And  by  far  the  most  active  and 
assiduous  of  external  agencies  that  caused  this — the  dairy- 
maid, so  to  speak,  who  was  never  weary  of  this  magnifi- 
cent churning — was  my  mother. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    FALL  OF  THE    FIRST   LEAF 

THE  dreadful  "season  of  snows  and  sins"  was  already 
beginning  to  approach  again:  in  other  words  more 
scholarship  examinations  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  began 
to  pile  their  fat  clouds  on  the  horizon.  These  were  the 
snows:  the  sins  were  my  own  in  not  taking  any  intelligent 
interest  in  the  subjects  which  would  make  them  "big  with 
blessing."  Certainly  I  had  been  sent  to  school  to  learn 
Latin  and  Greek  among  other  things,  but  the  other  things 
were  so  vastly  more  interesting.  I  was  usually  about 
tenth  in  any  form  where  I  happened  to  be,  and  I  remem- 
ber a  very  serious  letter  from  my  father  (after  a  series 
of  consecutive  tenths)  saying  that  he  had  always  observed 
that  boys  who  were  about  tenth,  could  always  do  much 
better  if  they  chose :  boys  lower  in  a  form  were  those  who 
often  tried  very  hard,  but  were  deficient  in  ability.  I  do 
not  think  I  was  so  diabolically  minded  as  to  consider  this 
a  reason  for  doing  worse,  but  certainly  I  declined  from 
that  modest  eminence  where  boys  who  could  do  better 
pleasantly  sunned  themselves,  and  sank  half  a  dozen 
places  lower.  By  one  of  those  wonderful  coincidences 
which  from  time  to  time  nourish  starving  optimists,  it 
so  happened  that  in  the  summer  of  1884  an  unusually 
large  number  of  the  sixth  left  school,  and  thus  seventeen 
promotions  were  made  out  of  the  fifth  form,  the  very  last 
of  which  consisted  of  myself.    With  all  the  dignity  and 

189 


190  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

decoration  of  sixth  form  upon  me,  I  had  somehow  justi- 
fied my  existence  again,  and  the  stigma  of  being  seven- 
teenth was  swallowed  up  in  the  glory  of  being  in  the 
sixth.  I  had  a  study  of  my  own,  instead  of  being  one 
of  a  herd  in  a  classroom.  I  could  make  small  boys  fill 
my  brewing  kettle  for  me  and  run  errands,  and  I  could, 
without  incurring  criticism,  wear  my  cap  at  the  back  of 
my  head. 

Something,  I  fancy,  in  an  address  which  the  headmaster 
gave  to  the  new  sixth  form  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sep- 
tember term,  was  said  about  duties  and  responsibilities: 
if  it  was,  it  must  have  rebounded  out  of  one  ear  without 
penetration.  For  the  average  schoolboy  is,  I  believe, 
waterproof  to  such  suggestions,  if  they  come  from  with- 
out: he  will  get  his  idea  of  his  duties  and  responsibilities 
purely  from  his  own  instinct,  or  rather  from  the  collective 
instinct  of  his  contemporaries,  and  his  notion  of  proper 
behaviour  in  himself  and  others  is  practically  entirely 
built  on  what  he  and  they  consider  to  be  "good  form." 
These  commandments  are  the  most  elusive  and  variable  of 
decalogues,  but  usually  wholesome,  and  completely  auto- 
cratic. Immorality,  for  instance,  at  that  time  was  bad 
form,  though  language  which  would  have  blistered  the 
paint  off  a  sewer,  was  perfectly  permissible,  if  you  wished 
to  indulge  in  it:  bullying  was  hopelessly  beyond  the  pale, 
gambling  and  drinking,  which  figure  so  menacingly  in 
those  lurid  histories  designed  to  make  mothers  tremble  for 
their  innocent  lambs,  were  absolutely  unthought  of.  We 
(the  sixth  form  generally)  were  a  set  of  genial  and 
energetic  pagans,  caring  most  of  all  for  each  other,  next 
for  games,  but  doing  quite  a  decent  amount  of  work;  in- 
deed, it  was  rather  the  fashion,  and  became  more  so,  to 
be  industrious  in  certain  well-defined  patches. 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    191 

Nobody  took  the  very  slightest  interest  in  such  subjects 
as  French  or  mathematics,  and  considering  the  way  in 
which  they  were  taught,  it  would  have  been  truly  remark- 
able if  we  had.  An  aged  man,  mumbling  to  himself, 
wrote  out  equations  and  made  pictures  of  Euclidian  prop- 
osition on  a  blackboard,  apparently  for  his  own  amuse- 
ment, without  any  reference  to  his  audience.  When  he 
had  had  enough  of  it,  he  told  us  to  close  all  books,  and 
write  out  the  proposition  he  had  demonstrated.  Some- 
times you  could,  sometimes  you  couldn't,  and  if  you 
couldn't  very  frequently,  you  had  to  do  it  twice  and  show 
it  up  next  school.  If  the  aged  man  remembered  to  ask 
for  it,  you  had  forgotten  to  do  it,  but  usually  he  forgot 
too.  But  what  it  was  all  about  was  a  blank  mystery,  until 
it  became  necessary  to  find  out,  because  elementary  Euclid 
and  algebra  formed  a  part  of  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
certificate  examination.  When  that  approached,  we  put 
our  heads  together  and  found  out  for  ourselves. 

French  was  equally  hopeless :  once  a  week  we  prepared 
a  couple  of  pages  of  some  French  history  for  the  head- 
master. Whatever  French  he  knew  he  certainly  did  not 
impart:  of  the  spoken  language  I  had  picked  up  enough 
abroad  to  be  aware  that  he  would  have  been  practically 
unintelligible  to  a  Frenchman.  I  believe  that  both  these 
subjects  were  admirably  taught  on  the  modem  side;  on 
the  classical  side  the  study  of  them  was  a  mere  farce. 
But  at  Latin  and  Greek  we  worked  quite  reasonably  and 
intelligently:  it  was  "good  form"  to  take  an  interest  in 
them,  and  it  was  not  thought  the  least  odd  if  somebody 
was  found  reading  the  Apology  of  Socrates  (in  a  transla- 
tion) out  of  school  hours,  though  it  had  nothing  to  do 
with  class-work,  or  that  I  treasured  a  piece  of  white  mar- 


192  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ble  which  my  sister  Nellie  on  a  foreign  tour  had  picked 
up  on  the  Acropolis. 

The  real  interest  of  life  centred  in  "the  Alley,"  a  pas- 
sage running  above  a  couple  of  classrooms  in  the  school 
buildings,  out  of  which  on  each  side  opened  minute  studies 
inhabited  by  sixth-form  in-coUege  boys.  Some  of  these 
were  double  studies  shared  by  two  occupants,  but  most 
were  single;  inviolable  castles  if  the  owner  chose  to  shut 
the  door.  Inside  there  was  room  for  a  table,  a  hanging 
bookcase,  and  perhaps  three  chairs  if  you  sat  close;  but 
who  would  dream  of  measuring  Paradise  by  cubic  con- 
tents? Never  surely  was  there  a  more  harmonious  de- 
mocracy, and  it  was  seldom  that  doors  were  shut;  the  in- 
habitants, unless  tied  to  their  books,  drifted  up  and  down 
and  round  and  round  like  excited  bubbles  in  some  loqua- 
cious backwater.  Within  the  limits  of  "good  form"  every 
freedom  of  action  and  opinion  was  allowed,  and  those 
limits  were  really  very  reasonable  ones.  It  must  not  be 
supposed  that  "good  form"  was  ever  discussed  at  all:  it 
was  merely  the  unwritten,  unspoken  code,  which  held 
things  together,  and  undoubtedly  the  gravest  offense 
against  it  was  a  hint  of  condescension  or  superiority.  If 
you  were  so  fortunate  as  to  get  into  the  school  fifteen 
or  achieve  any  distinction,  "the  Alley"  pooled  the  credit, 
and  woe  be  to  any  who  showed  "side"  to  the  AUeyites. 
If  you  liked  (hardly  anybody  did)  to  be  extremely  neat 
in  dress,  to  get  yourself  up  to  kill,  to  wear  buttonholes, 
you  were  perfectly  at  liberty  to  do  so;  but  if  you  showed 
the  least  "swank"  over  your  rosebud,  the  witnesses  of 
your  enormity  would  probably  stroll  thoughtfully  away 
and  return  embellished  with  dandelions  and  groundsel. 
That  was  sarcasm,  popularly  called  "sarc,"  and  was  a 
weapon  ruthlessly  employed  towards  the  superior  per- 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    193 

son.  No  one  could  stand  a  conspiracy  of  "sarc"  for  long: 
it  was  better  to  mend  your  ways  and  reduce  your  swollen 
head.  Only  one  member  of  the  Alley  was  ever  known 
to  resist  a  continual  course  of  "sarc,"  and  he,  poor  fellow, 
was  goaded  by  the  shafts  of  love,  for  he  adored  to  dis- 
traction one  of  the  masters'  daughters  who  appeared  un- 
aware of  his  existence.  This  was  unusual  conduct,  but 
he  was  at  liberty  to  squander  emotion  on  her  if  he  wished ; 
what  roused  the  Alley  to  arms,  so  that  they  loaded  them- 
selves with  "sarc,"  as  with  hand  grenades,  was  that  he 
affected  to  despise  all  who  were  not  enslaved  by  some 
pretty-faced  maiden.  Then,  as  was  right,  he  found  hair- 
pins mysteriously  appearing  on  his  carpet,  and  heard  his 
Christian  name  called  in  faint  girlish  falsetto  from  a 
neighbouring  study,  and  discovered  notes  with  passionate 
declarations  of  love  and  a  wealth  of  suggestive  allusions 
that  I  would  no  longer  "pollewt"  my  pen  with  describ- 
ing nestling  in  his  coat-pocket.  But  such  was  the  innate 
depravity  of  his  amorous  heart  that  he  really  didn't  seem 
to  mind  the  most  withering  "sarc."  .  .  .  Games  were 
not  compulsory  in  the  sixth,  and  in  consequence,  though 
athletes  were  in  the  majority,  athleticism  was  no  longer 
automatic,  and  now  a  boy  would  suffer  no  loss  of  esteem, 
or  offend  any  sense  of  decency,  if  he  chose  not  to  play  any 
game  whatever.  A  wide  tolerance  for  your  fellows  was 
the  first  lesson  of  the  Alley;  liberty,  equality,  and  fra- 
ternity were  its  admirable  guides  to  life. 

Next  year,  when,  by  another  intervention  of  Provi- 
dence, I  suddenly  found  myself  head  of  my  house,  with 
a  magnificent  apartment  next  the  bathroom  for  my  habi- 
tation, the  snowstorm  of  scholarship  examinations  burst 
over  me.  For  a  suitable  inducement  in  the  shape  of  a 
scholarship  ox  exhibition,  I  was  prepared  to  go  to  New, 


194  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Magdalen,  or  Worcester  at  Oxford,  or  to  King's  College, 
Cambridge;  but  not  a  single  one  of  these  ancient  (or  shall 
we  say  antiquated?)  seats  of  learning  would,  after  exam- 
ining me,  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets  in  order  to 
secure  me.  I  was  very  busy  at  the  time,  for  I  was  editing 
The  Marlburian  and  conducting  the  school  "Penny  Read- 
ings," and  playing  football  for  them  and  rackets,  and  not 
being  able  to  find  time  for  everything  I  let  my  school- 
work  slide  altogether  and,  when  the  depressing  results 
came  out,  bore  failure  with  admirable  fortitude.  In  other 
words,  I  did  not  care  at  all;  if  anything,  I  was  rather 
pleased,  because  I  began  dimly  to  conceive  the  possibility 
of  being  allowed  to  stop  at  school  for  an  extra  year, 
whereas  I  should  normally  have  left  in  the  summer.  But 
Marlborough  was  now  to  me  the  most  amiable  of  dwell- 
ings; there  were  friends  there  whom  I  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  parting  with ;  there  were  schemes  that  I  could 
not  bear  to  leave  unfulfilled,  and  I  directed  all  the  in- 
genuity of  which  I  was  capable  to  secure  my  remaining 
here  for  an  unheard-of  year  longer.  From  being  re- 
signed to  failure  I  passed,  as  my  plans  matured,  into  being 
enraptured  with  it.  A  false  step,  a  misplaced  interview, 
might  spell  ruin,  and  after  much  thought  I  went  to  the 
headmaster  with  a  homily  all  about  myself.  It  was  clear 
that  I  had  not  attained  a  decent  standard  of  scholarship 
yet ;  surely  my  coming  years  at  the  University  would  be 
more  profitable  if  I  was  better  prepared  to  take  advantage 
of  them?  My  father  was  bent  on  my  having  a  career  of 
some  distinction  there,  and  would  not  he  be  far  more 
likely  to  find  his  ambitions  for  me  realized  if  I  made 
there  the  better  start  that  another  year  at  school  would 
give  me'?  Another  year  now  of  undiluted  classics.  .  .  . 
This  scheme  enlisted  his  sympathy,  and  he  said  he 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    195 

would  talk  to  my  house-master  about  it,  who  might  not, 
however,  want  to  keep  me  in  such  august  seniority.  But 
as  to  that  I  had  no  doubt  whatever,  for  this  gentleman 
had  only  just  come  to  the  house,  and  his  seat  in  the  saddle 
was  at  present  remarkably  uncertain.  He  used  to  ask 
members  of  the  sixth,  and  in  especial  the  head  of  the 
house,  to  go  the  rounds  for  him  when  it  was  the  hour  for 
him  to  parade  the  donnitories  at  night;  he  would  do  any- 
thing to  shirk  disciplinary  contact  if  a  senior  member  of 
the  house  could  accomplish  this  for  him.  No  senior  mem- 
ber of  the  house  felt  the  slightest  nervousness  at  what  so 
terrified  the  house-master:  we  visited  the  dormitories,  sat 
on  a  bed  here  and  there,  talking  to  friends,  helped  a  strag- 
gler who  had  not  finished  a  construing  lesson  for  the 
morning,  and  eventually  went  back  to  the  house-master's 
room  to  say  good  night  and  report  that  all  was  well. 
Then  he  gave  you  a  slice  of  cake,  and  tried  to  conceal  his 
pipe,  and  hoped  that  nobody  in  the  house  smoked  (which, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  didn't),  and  everything  was 
very  pleasant  and  comfortable.  The  house  was  behaving 
quite  well,  because  prefects  and  senior  boys  had  it  well 
in  hand;  but  if  I  left,  my  successor  as  head  of  the  house 
was  bound  to  be  a  very  mild,  spectacled  youth,  and,  with- 
out conceit,  I  felt  sure  that  my  house-master  would  prefer 
to  keep  me,  who  during  this  last  year  had  managed  it 
quite  nicely  for  him.  His  attitude  came  off  according 
to  plan,  and  we  had  quite  an  affecting  interview. 

Then  came  the  clincher  to  this  careful  spade-work,  and 
I  got  both  him  and  the  headmaster  to  write  to  my  father 
urging  him  to  allow  me  to  stop  another  year,  not  only 
for  my  own  good  (interview  A),  but  for  the  well-being 
of  the  house  (interview  B).  The  double  appeal  was  suc- 
cessful :  it  was  settled  that  I  should  stay  for  another  year. 


196  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

and  then  go  up  to  King's  College,  Cambridge.  As. I 
would  be  over  nineteen  when  the  next  scholarship  exam- 
ination came  round,  I  was  ineligible  on  account  of  ad- 
vanced age,  and  thus,  while  the  snowstorms  were  next 
vexing  my  contemporaries,  I  should  sit  serene  and  calm 
on  the  sunny  slopes  of  antiquity.  I  had  no  notion  of 
using  this  extra  year  of  life  (for  so  it  appeared  then)  for 
idle  or  unedifying  purposes.  I  meant  to  work  hard  at  sub- 
jects that  would  eventually  "tell."  I  meant  also,  with 
a  suspicion  of  priggishness,  to  make  the  house  streak  a 
meteor-like  path  across  the  starry  sky  of  school.  We  were 
going  to  be  a  model  of  enlightenment  (this  was  the  am- 
bition) ;  we  were  to  win  the  racket  house-cup,  and  the 
fives  cup,  and  the  gymnasium  cup,  and  the  football  cup, 
and  the  singing  cup  (for,  like  the  Meistersingers,  eveiy 
house  competed  in  singing),  and  two  vocal  quartettes, 
triumphantly  performed,  gave  a  fifth  challenge  cup. 
There  it  was — forty  boys  were  to  be  drilled  into  win- 
ning every  event  of  this  immense  pentathlon.  A  sixth 
cup,  possibly  within  the  range,  was  the  cricket  cup;  but 
in  the  matter  of  cricket  the  house  generally  was  no  more 
than  a  company  of  optimistic  amateurs.  The  other  five 
cups  seemed  within  the  limits  of  probable  achievement, 
and  who  knew  but  that  a  breezy  eleven,  rather  ignorant 
of  cricket,  except  for  the  presence  of  the  best  left-hand 
bowler  in  the  school,  might  not  effect  some  incredible 
miracle?  Never  has  anybody's  head  been  so  stuffed 
full  of  plans  as  was  mine  when  I  went  back  a  year  later 
than  was  reasonable  for  this  series  of  inconceivable  ex- 
citements. 

The  head  of  the  school  this  year  was  Eustace  Miles. 
We  had  already  been  great  friends  for  many  terms,  and 
now  this  friendship  ripened  into  a  unique  .alliance;  from 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    197 

morning  till  night  we  were  together,  and  seethed  in  proj- 
ects, failures  and  accomplishments.  There  was  no  sport 
or  industry  in  which  we  were  not  associated.  No  mat- 
ter came  up  within  the  jurisdiction  of  either  of  us  in 
which  each  did  not  consult  the  other.  He  was  going  up 
for  a  classical  scholarship  at  King's,  Cambridge,  for  we 
had  quite  settled  not  to  have  done  with  each  other  when 
school  was  over.  I  had  to  get  to  learn  some  classics  some- 
how, and  so  together  we  concocted  the  most  delightful 
plan,  namely,  that  we  should  neither  of  us  do  any  French, 
mathematics,  or  history,  but  should  be  excused  coming 
into  school  altogether  while  such  lessons  were  in  progress, 
devoting  ourselves  in  the  privacy  of  our  studies  to  classics. 
The  headmaster  most  sensibly  saw  and  sanctioned  our 
point,  and  consequently  we  had  a  whole  holiday  one  day 
a  week,  and  on  two  other  days  only  one  hour  in  school. 
For  me  that  voluntary  unsupervised  reading,  ^.'  •  c  brows- 
ing at  will  in  Attic  and  Roman  pastures,  gave  me  pre- 
cisely all  I  had  lacked  before;  the  two  dead  languages 
stirred  and  lived,  the  dry  bones  moved,  and  the  sinews 
and  the  flesh  came  up  on  them,  and  the  skin  covered  them, 
and  the  winds  of  the  delicate  Athenian  air  breathed  upon 
them.  Four  years  ago  Beesly  had  awakened  in  me  the 
sense  of  the  Greek  genius  for  beauty,  but  not  till  now  had 
the  flame  spread  to  the  language.  That  for  me  had 
always  smouldered  and  smoked  under  the  damp  of  gram- 
mar and  accents;  now,  when  I  could  learn  as  I  chose,  it 
flared  up.  Prosody  and  inflexions,  moods  and  cases,  all 
that  was  tedious  to  acquire,  need  no  longer  be  learned  by 
rule;  the  knowledge  of  rules  began  to  dawn  on  me  mere- 
ly by  incessantly  coming  across  examples  of  them,  and 
I  began  to  learn  under  the  tuition  of  admiration.  The 
same  thrilled  interest  invaded  Latin  also,  and  it  was  no 


198  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

longer  what  could  be  made  of  the  languages  in  English 
that  attracted  me,  but  what  they  were  in  themselves. 
Such  study  did  not  lead  to  accurate  scholarship,  but  it 
gave  me  what  was  of  much  greater  value  to  one  who  did 
not  mean  to  spend  his  life  in  editing  school-books,  namely, 
an  inkling  of  the  infinite  flexibility  of  language  and  joy 
in  the  cadences  of  words,  while  from  the  scholastic  stand- 
point it  added  the  stimulus  which  enabled  me  not  to  re- 
main at  Cambridge  such  a  hopeless  dunce  at  classics  as  I 
had  hitherto  always  been.  All  the  teaching  I  had  ever 
received  had  failed  to  make  me  apply  such  intelligence  as 
I  was  possessed  of,  directly  and  vividly:  there  had  never 
been  any  sunshine,  as  regards  language,  in  the  earlier 
grey  days  of  learning,  for  the  sky  had  always  pelted  with 
gerunds  and  optatives.  .  .  .  With  that  illumination  a 
great  ligl^''  shone  on  English  also:  in  the  galloping  race 
of  compu-iLion  at  home  I,  at  any  rate,  had  much  preferred 
to  run  than  to  read,  but  now  I  plunged  headlong  into 
the  sea  of  English  literature,  reading  fast,  reading  care- 
lessly, but  reading  rapturously.  I  bought  the  six-volume 
edition  of  Browning  out  of  the  money  I  won  over  school- 
fives,  which  should  have  been  devoted  to  the  purchase  of 
a  silver  cup;  a  successful  competition  in  rackets  landed 
the  works  of  Dickens,  and  in  the  hours  when  I  should 
naturally  have  done  mathematics  and  French  and  history, 
these  shared  with  Juvenal  and  Aristophanes  the  honey  of 
the  flying  minutes.  Then  came  the  need  to  imitate  which 
always  besets  the  budding  author,  and  if  you  searched  in 
the  proper  pages  of  The  Marlburian  you  would  surely 
disinter  some  specimens  that  aimed  at  Addison  and 
stanzas  which  could  never  have  found  their  printer,  had 
there  not  been  in  my  study  a  well-thumbed  copy  of 
Tennyson's  early  lyrics. 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    199 

There  was  another  by-road  for  the  literary  pilgrim: 
four  of  us  were  joint  editors,  producers,  and  proprietors  of 
that  school  paper.  Who  the  two  others  were  I  have  no 
idea;  it  is  certain  that  Eustace  and  I  wrote  the  greater 
part  of  it,  and  that,  with  some  fine  journalistic  flair,  he, 
and  he  alone,  caused  it  to  pour  money  into  the  pockets  of 
its  four  editors.  Domestically  he  knew  something  about 
printing  and  pulls  and  proofs,  which  had  escaped  the  ex- 
perience of  his  friend  and  the  family  printing  press, 
and  that  year  The  Marlburian^  as  I  hope  it  is  now,  was 
a  paying  concern.  Eustace  interviewed  an  astonished 
tradesman,  paid  the  printing  bills,  audited  the  accounts, 
and  flowed  back  to  his  collaborators  a  Pactolus  of  large 
silver  pieces.  We  wrote  indignant  letters  signed  "A 
Parent,"  and  answered  them  with  withering  rejoinders 
signed  "Another  Parent" ;  we  invented  abuses,  and  firmly 
denied  them;  we  cut  down  the  habitual  drowsy  accounts 
of  house  matches  to  the  smallest  paragraphs  and  spread 
a  table  of  Socratic  dialogue,  proving  that  football  was 
the  same  as  cricket  and  that  masters  were  the  slaves  of 
boys;  or  imagined  that  a  hundred  years  hence  a  frag- 
ment of  "The  Princess"  was  dug  up  and  edited  and 
amended  by  Dry-as-Dust;  or  recommended  the  school 
generally,  when  a  two-mile  run  was  ordered  by  the  foot- 
ball captain  of  their  houses,  to  buy  a  hoop  and  bowl  it 
along  the  road,  in  order  to  enliven  the  stupid  act  of 
purposeless  running.  In  this  latter  point  we  set  the 
example  ourselves  and  bowled  nice  wooden  hoops  down 
the  Bath  road,  thereby  for  some  reason  infuriating  the 
staff  of  masters.  Once,  I  remember,  Eustace  and  I, 
going  out  for  a  run  with  our  hoops,  passed  the  open  door 
of  a  class-room  at  an  hour  when  the  lower  school  was 
at  work,  on  which  a  demented  master  sent  out  two  junior 


200  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

boys  with  orders  to  capture  the  hoops  and  bring  them 
in  to  him.  Now,  there  was  nothing  immoral  about  hoops, 
nor  was  there  any  school  rule  that  forbade  their  employ- 
ment, and  so  we  went  very  briskly  along  down  the  Bath 
road  for  a  mile  or  two,  with  two  small  boys  in  pursuit, 
and  when  they  could  run  no  longer  we  sat  down  on  a  gate. 
They  panted  up,  and  said  they  had  been  told  to  take 
away  the  hoops  and  bring  them  back  to  Mr.  Sharpe,  and 
so,  very  politely,  we  said,  "Come  and  take  them." 
Naturally  they  could  make  no  serious  attempt  to  take 
away  the  hoops  of  the  head  of  the  school  and  the  captain 
of  the  Rugby  fifteen,  and  so,  after  a  little  conversation, 
we  all  came  back  together.  It  was  all  very  silly,  but  why 
did  Mr.  Sharpe  send  two  small  boys  to  take  away  the 
hoops  of  two  big  boys  who  happened  to  choose  to  bowl 
hoops'?  We  soon  got  tired  of  the  habit,  but  it  was  great 
fun  to  write  indignant  letters  to  The  Marlhurian  about 
hoops  signed  "Magister,"  and  scathing  replies  signed 
"Discipulus."  It  made  excellent  selling  stuff  for  the 
paper,  and  boys  who  had  never  dreamed  of  buying  a 
Marlburian  before  put  their  threepence  down  with  a 
spendthrift  recklessness,  because  they  knew  that  there  was 
a  correspondence  about  hoops,  with  plenty  of  ''sarc"  in 
it.  There  were  real  letters  as  well  from  dignified  Old 
Marlburians,  beginning  "Has  it  come  to  this?"  .  .  . 

To  all  these  entrancing  topics  the  editors  gave  their 
serious  consideration.  They  herded  together  for  con- 
sultation, and  rejected  each  other's  contributions  with 
suave  impartiality,  and  when  they  had  settled  what  they 
wished  to  print,  Eustace  measured  it,  and  usually  said 
that  there  was  too  much.  If  it  was  all  very  precious  a 
double  number  (price  sixpence)  was  decreed;  if  not,  a 
Socratic  dialogue  or  some  trifle  of  that  kind  was  cut  out. 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    201 

Three  out  of  the  four  would  be  very  complimentary  to 
the  baffled  author,  and  assure  him  that  they  found  his 
contribution  most  amusing,  and  if  that  did  not  soothe  the 
rejection  of  it,  they  would  grow  more  candid,  and  say 
it  was  beastly  rot.  When  that  was  disposed  of  there 
might  perhaps  be  a  few  inches  of  column  to  spare,  and 
we  inserted  an  advertisement  that  a  sixth  form  boy  was 
willing  to  exchange  his  hoop  (nearly  new)  for  a  set  of 
false  teeth.  Luckily  someone  remembered  that  a  mathe- 
matical master  had  false  teeth,  and  would  be  liable  to 
think  that  this  was  "sarc"  directed  at  him,  and  some 
answers  to  non-existent  correspondents  were  put  in  in- 
stead. By  that  time  the  cake  would  be  finished  and 
the  teapot  dry,  and  Eustace  took  the  MSS.  to  the  print- 
ers, and  I  went  to  conduct  a  rehearsal  of  Haydn's 
Symphony  for  the  approaching  Penny  Reading,  and  ask 
Harry  Irving  what  he  was  going  to  recite  at  it. 

These  Penny  Readings  which  took  place  once  a  term 
were  an  entirely  delightful  institution.  Qui  doccbant 
jam  docentuT^  as  the  Carmen  told  us,  for  the  whole  of  this 
musical  and  dramatic  entertainment  was  got  up,  rehearsed 
(to  whatever  stage  of  efficiency),  conducted  and  per- 
formed by  boys  without  any  help  from  masters.  There 
were  piano  solos,  part-songs,  vocal  solos  or  duets,  and 
perhaps  some  reading  or  representation,  say,  of  the  trial 
scene  in  Pickwick.  But  this  year  the  Penny  Readings  in- 
cluded grim  and  finished  recitations  by  Harry  Irving,  who 
"drew"  in  a  manner  so  unprecedented,  that  instead  of 
holding  them  in  the  "Bradleian,"  a  hall  of  but  moderate 
dimensions.  Upper  School  itself,  capable  of  holding  the 
entire  body  of  boys  and  masters,  had  to  be  requisitioned. 
It  fell  to  my  lot  to  conduct  the  musical  part  of  the  en- 
tertainment, and  this  year  we  audaciously  rehearsed  and 


202  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

performed  Haydn's  Toy  Symphony,  in  which,  for  a  spe- 
cial treat,  we  allowed  Mr.  Bambridge  to  play  the  cuckoo. 
There  he  sat,  rapturously  cheered  as  he  mounted  to  the 
platform  with  his  little  wooden  tube,  lean  and  grave  with 
a  steady  eye  fixed  on  the  conductor's  baton.  It  had  been 
arranged  that  the  cuckoo,  otherwise  so  obedient  and  punc- 
tual in  its  flutings,  should  at  one  point  run  amuck  alto- 
gether, and  go  on  saying  "cuckoo"  in  spite  of  the  efforts 
of  the  conductor  to  silence  it.  On  it  went  till  the  roars 
of  the  audience  entirely  drowned  its  voice,  and  when 
silence  was  restored,  it  gave  one  more  "cuckoo,"  pan- 
issimo  prestissimo^  just  to  show  that  it  was  quite  unre- 
pentant. .  .  .  But  more  than  anything  did  Harry 
Irving's  recitations  bring  down  the  house.  In  appear- 
ance he  was  his  father,  young  and  amazingly  good-look- 
ing, and  he  had  all  the  assurance  and  grip  of  a  mature 
actor:  he  stalked  and  he  paused,  he  yelled  and  he 
whispered,  and  he  withered  us  with  horror  in  some  appall- 
ing little  soliloquy  by  a  dying  hangman,  round  whose 
death-bed  the  ghosts  of  his  victims  most  unpleasantly 
hovered.  Then  in  the  manner  of  a  parson  he  gave  us  a 
short  sermon  on  the  moral  lesson  "to  be  drawn  from, 
dear  brethren,  that  exquisite  gem  of  English  poetry, 
'Mary  had  a  little  larm.'  " 

The  athletic  ambitions  of  the  first  of  these  three  terms 
was  of  course  to  win  the  football  cup  in  house-ties,  and 
also  all  the  school  matches.  Neither  quite  came  off,  for 
the  house  was  beaten  in  the  final,  while  the  school  only 
made  a  moderate  show  in  its  foreign  matches.  But  there 
was  little  time  for  moaning.  Close  on  the  heels  of  that 
disappointment  came  the  Lent  term  with  its  fives,  rackets 
and  singing  cups,  and  there  was  then  no  cause  for  any- 
thing but  jubilation.    At  Easter  came  the  dreadful  fiasco 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    203 

of  the  Public  School  rackets  in  London,  and  following 
on  that,  the  house  was  again  knocked  out  in  the  final  at 
cricket.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  heaviness  of  heart  with 
which  I  came  down  that  day  from  the  cricket-held,  due, 
not  to  the  fact  only  of  defeat — for  even  if  we  had  won, 
that  sense  of  finality  would  have  been  there — but  because 
for  me  all  the  zeal  and  the  struggle,  with  its  failures  and 
successes,  of  these  entrancing  school  games,  was  over. 
Not  again  could  games,  so  I  dimly  and  correctly  realized, 
have  quite  that  absorbing  and  pellucid  quality  which  dis- 
tinguished house  matches:  there  was  already  forming 
in  my  mind,  now  that  the  last  of  these  competitions 
was  over,  a  certain  dingy  philosophy  clouding  the  bright- 
ness, which  recognized  that  games  were  amusements,  to 
be  taken  as  such.  They  might  give  exhilaration  and  en- 
joyment, but  not  again  would  they  produce  that  unique 
absorption.  I  could  not  imagine  again  caring  quite  as 
much  as  I  had  cared  during  these  last  six  years.  Some 
hour  had  struck,  and  not  alone  for  games,  but  for  the 
multitudinous  aims  that  had  been  bounded  by  the  chapel 
wall  on  one  side,  the  master's  garden  on  another,  the  field 
where  was  the  racket  court  and  the  football  grounds  in 
winter  and  the  cricket  pitches  in  summer,  on  the  third  and 
fourth  sides.  There  was  the  angulus  terrcs^  which,  apart 
from  brief  holidays,  had  constituted  the  whole  of  life  for 
the  vision  of  a  boy.  Apart  from  Addington,  there  was 
nothing  in  the  whole  round  world  that  mattered  like 
those  few  acres,  and  the  glory  which  exuded  out  of  their 
very  soil. 

Dimly  I  conjectured  that  in  a  few  months  Marl- 
borough would  be  withdrawn  into  some  bright  starry 
orbit  of  its  own,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  revolving 
there  with  a  sundered  light  in  which  I  should  no  longer 


204  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

share,  and  that  soon  I  should  peer  for  it  through  the 
fog  of  the  years  that  drifted  across  it.  Some  other  orbit 
was  to  be  mine,  which,  when  I  began  to  move  in  it, 
would  no  doubt  have  a  heaven  of  its  own  to  scour 
through,  but  as  yet  it  had  no  significance  for  me;  it  was 
dim  and  uncharted.  Still  incurably  boyish,  in  spite  of 
the  nineteen  years  which  were  verging  on  the  twentieth, 
I  felt  that  I  was  being  cast  out  of  the  only  place  that 
mattered.  I  suppose  I  knew  in  some  dull  logical  way, 
that  it  was  otherwise:  that  inexorable  Time  which  sent 
me  forth  out  of  this  mature  infancy  had  something  left 
in  store,  but  to  the  eyes  of  nineteen,  everyone  who  is 
thirty,  at  any  rate,  must  clearly  be  a  sere  and  yellow 
leaf,  waiting  for  an  autumnal  blast  to  make  an  end  of  him 
in  the  fall  of  withered  foliage.  Life  might  be  possible 
up  to  twenty-five  or  so,  but  then  beyond  doubt  senility 
must  be  moribund  and  slobbering.  "Thirty  at  least"  was 
the  verdict  then:  "Thirty  at  most"  was  so  soon  substi- 
tuted for  it.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  had  the 
definite  sense  of  a  book  read  through  and  loved  from 
cover  to  cover,  being  closed,  the  sense  of  an  "end,"  a 
finished  period.  Hitherto,  change  of  home  or  the  leav- 
ing of  a  private  school  had  been  not  an  "end"  but  a  be- 
ginning: though  one  experience  was  finished  the  open- 
ing of  a  new  one,  of  fresh  places,  fresh  conditions  had 
made  the  old  just  slip  from  the  fingers  of  a  careless  hand, 
without  sense  of  loss.  But  now  my  fingers  clung  desper- 
ately to  what  was  slipping  away:  they  did  not  clutch 
at  that  which  was  coming,  but  tightened,  as  the  smooth 
days  hurtled  by,  on  that  which  they  still  just  held. 

The  last  game  that  mattered  "frightfully"  had  been 
already  played,  the  last  number  of  The  Marlburian  came 
out,  and  while  one  half  of  me  would  have  chosen  that 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    205 

the  full  moon  of  July  should  know  no  wane,  the  other 
would  willingly  have  seen  her  turn  to  ashes,  and  fall  like 
a  cinder  from  the  sky,  to  match  the  days  from  which 
the  glow  and  the  radiance  were  dying  in  the  frost  of  the 
coming  departure.  Inanimate  objects,  beloved  and 
familiar,  like  the  row  of  lime  trees  in  the  court  with  the 
circular  seats  round  them,  my  house  study  with  the  copies 
of  Turner  water-colours  by  my  sister,  the  Alley  and  its 
noisy  merry  staircase,  began  to  wear  a  strange  aspect,  for, 
so  soon,  they  would  have  passed  completely  into  other 
occupation.  Drop  by  drop,  like  the  sweet  drippings  from 
the  limes,  the  honey  was  oozing  from  them,  leaving 
empty  cells  and  alien  habitations. 

In  especial  there  was  a  certain  covered  columned  pas- 
sage, a  paved  and  roofed  pergola  close  to  the  sixth  form 
class-room  where  so  often  I  had  waited  for  the  advent  of 
a  friend.  In  stormy  south-westerly  weather  the  rain 
beat  into  it,  but  it  was  a  good  meeting-place,  for  the 
Alley,  the  Upper  School,  the  sixth  form  room  and  the 
Bradleian  made  it  a  junction  for  passengers,  and  there 
was  a  board  up  with  school-notices,  promotions  into  the 
eleven  and  the  fifteen  and  whatnot,  to  while  away  the 
waiting.  A  congregation  of  steps  would  come  there  as 
some  form  was  released,  but  he  was  not  there :  then  would 
come  a  few  scattered  steps,  but  not  his.  And  then  he 
would  come  round  a  corner,  in  a  blustering  hurry,  and 
say,  "Oh,  sorry,"  and  together  we  went  up  to  the  house- 
study  madly  alive,  and  sanely  content.  Those  minutes 
of  anticipation  made  the  columned  pergola  more  vivid 
than  even  the  house-study  or  the  Alley  or  the  lime  trees, 
and  in  so  short  a  while  it  would  all  be  dead,  as  a  piece  of 
scenery  remaining  on  a  stage,  where  others  should  play 
their  friendly  and  wholesome  parts.     If  I  had  had  that 


206  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

which  in  the  cant  phrase  is  called  "the  corporate  sense," 
I  suppose  the  great  thing  would  have  been  that  genera- 
tions of  others  should  do  as  I  had  done,  and  I  should 
have  said  my  grace,  and  got  up  thankfully  from  the 
delicate  and  vigorous  feast.  Instead  I  was  Oliver  and 
asked  for  more,  and  every  year  since  I  have  wanted  more 
of  some  quality  that  is  inseparable  from  the  wonder  and 
sunset  of  boyhood.  But  now  the  sun  was  notched  by 
the  hills  over  which  I  must  soon  climb,  where  lay  the 
untravelled  country:  its  last  rays  were  level  over  the 
plain,  and  before  this  last  week  of  July  was  over,  only 
high  up  on  the  peaks  of  memory  away  to  the  east  would 
the  rose  linger.  That,  too,  so  I  dismally  supposed,  would 
fade  presently,  but  there  I  was  wrong.  It  has  never  faded 
nor  lost  one  atom  of  its  radiance. 

There  were  rejoicings  and  jubilations  to  be  gone 
through :  the  advent  of  Nellie  for  prize-giving,  in  which 
at  last  it  was  my  lot  to  make  several  excursions  to  the 
table  where  morocco-bound  books  were  stacked.  There 
was  a  house-supper  on  the  last  day  of  all  in  celebration 
of  the  winning  of  those  challenge  cups,  which  was  grati- 
fying also,  but  below  that  was  the  sound  of  the  passing- 
bell.  All  that  day  it  sounded,  except  just  at  the  moment 
when  I  should  have  expected  it  to  be  most  unbearably 
funereal.  For  the  friend  for  whom  I  had  so  often  waited 
in  the  colonnade  came  up  with  me  to  the  cricket  pavilion, 
from  which  I  had  to  take  away  blazers  and  bat  and 
cricketing  paraphernalia,  and  having  got  them  stuffed  in- 
side my  bag,  we  sat  on  the  steep  bank  overlooking  the 
field  to  wait  for  the  first  stroke  of  the  chapel-bell.  Other 
groups  were  straying  about  the  grass,  and  some  came  and 
talked  for  a  bit,  and  we  wished  they  would  go  away,  be- 
cause nobody  else  was  wanted  just  then.     It  was  not 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  FIRST  LEAF    207 

that  there  was  anything  particular  to  say,  for  boys  don't 
say  much  to  one  another,  and  we  lay  on  the  grass,  and 
chewed  the  sweet  ends  of  it,  and  when  not  silent,  talked 
of  perfectly  trivial  things.  And  at  last  the  friend  rolled 
over  on  to  his  face  and  said : 

"Oh,  damn  I" 

"Why?"  I  asked,  knowing  quite  well. 

"Because  it  will  be  awful  rot  without  you." 

"You'll  soon  find  somebody  else,"  said  I. 

"Funny,"  said  he. 

"Laugh  then,"  said  I. 

He  sat  up,  nursing  his  knees  in  his  arms,  and  looking 
down  over  the  field.  Just  below  was  the  stretch  of  grass 
where  house  football-ties  were  played  in  the  winter,  to 
the  left  was  Beesly's  house,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the 
field  the  racket  court.  Beyond  and  below  across  the 
road  the  chapel  and  the  red  school-buildings.  Then  his 
eyes  came  back  from  their  excursion. 

"It's  been  ripping  anyhow,"  he  said.  "Did  two  fel- 
lows ever  have  such  a  good  time?" 

Quite  suddenly  at  that,  when  the  passing-bell  should 
have  been  loudest,  it  ceased  altogether.  The  whole  of 
my  dismal  maunderings  about  days  that  were  dead  and 
years  that  were  past,  I  knew  to  be  utterly  mistaken. 
Nothing  that  was  worth  having  was  dead  or  past  at  all : 
it  was  all  here  now,  and  all  mine,  a  possession  eternally 
alive. 

"But  did  they?"  he  repeated,  as  I  did  not  answer. 

"Never.  Nor  will.  And  there's  chapel-bell.  Get 
up." 

He  stood  up  and  picked  the  grass  seeds  from  his 
clothes. 


208  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

"Psalms  this  morning,"  he  said  telegraphically. 

"I  know.  'Brethren  and  companions'  sake.'  Didn't 
think  you  had  noticed." 

"Rather.    Good  old  Psalm." 

I  took  up  the  cricket-bag,  and  he  pulled  at  it  to  carry 
it.    A  handle  came  off. 

"Ass,"  said  I. 

"Well,  it  was  three-quarters  off  already,"  said  he. 
"Come  on;  we  shall  be  late.  You  can  leave  it  at  the 
porter's  lodge." 

"Oh,  may  I,  really?    Thanks  awfully,"  said  I. 

"Sarc,"  said  he. 

There  was  Beesly  on  the  platform  next  day  when  I  got 
to  the  station,  and  I  remembered  he  had  asked  me  what 
train  I  was  going  by.  He  just  nodded  to  me,  and  con- 
tinued looking  at  volumes  on  the  bookstall.  But  just  as 
the  whistle  sounded,  he  came  to  the  carriage  door. 

"Just  came  to  see  you  off,"  he  said.  "Don't  forget  us 
all." 


CHAPTER  X 


CAMBRIDGE 


THE  whole  family  went  that  summer  holiday  to  the 
Lakes,  where  my  father  had  taken  the  Rectory  of 
Easedale,  and  in  that  not  very  commodious  house  five 
children,  two  parents  and  Beth  all  managed  to  shelter 
themselves  from  the  everlasting  rain  that  deluged  those 
revolting  regions.  Had  not  steep  muddy  hills  separated 
one  lake  from  another,  I  verily  believe  that  the  Lakes 
must  have  become  one  sheet  of  mournful  water  with  a 
few  Pikes  and  Ghylls  sticking  up  like  Mount  Ararat  on 
another  occasion  that  can  scarcely  have  been  more  rainy. 
There  was  fishing  to  be  had,  but  no  fish:  you  might  as 
well  have  fished  in  the  rapids  of  Niagara  as  cast  a  fly  on 
the  streams,  while  the  lakes  themselves  are  noted  for  their 
depths  of  barren  water.  Out  we  used  to  go  in  mackin- 
toshes, and  back  we  came  in  mackintoshes,  and  I  cannot 
suppose  that  thirty  years  later  the  Rectory  at  Easedale 
can  have  lost  its  smell  of  wet  india-rubber  and  drying 
homespuns.  As  a  special  contribution  to  the  general  dis- 
comfort Nellie  discovered  and  developed  a  grand  sort  of 
ailment  called  "pleurodynia,"  which  I  suppose  is  the 
result  of  never  being  dry,  and  I  capped  that  by  cultivating 
the  most  orange-coloured  jaundice  ever  seen,  and  con- 
tinued being  violently  sick  when  you  would  have  thought 
there  was  nothing  to  be  sick  with. 

But  these  atrocious  tempests  gave  my  father  unlimited 

209 


210  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

scope  for  what  his  irreverent  family  called  "The  Cottar's 
Saturday  Night."  Best  of  all  situations  in  the  holidays 
he  loved  to  have  his  entire  family  sitting  close  round  him 
busy,  silent  and  slightly  unreal  to  their  own  sense,  while 
he  "did"  his  Cyprian.  There  he  sat  with  his  books  and 
papers  in  front  of  him,  at  the  end  of  a  table  in  a  smallish 
room,  with  all  of  us  sitting  there,  each  with  his  book, 
speaking  very  rarely  and  very  quietly,  so  as  not  to  dis- 
turb him,  and  everybody,  alas,  except  him,  slightly  con- 
strained. In  these  holidays,  Hugh,  owing  to  inveterate 
idleness  at  Eton  (where,  beating  me,  he  had  got  a  scholar- 
ship), had  a  tutor  to  whom  he  paid  only  the  very  slightest 
attention,  and  on  these  evenings  he  would  have  some  piece 
of  Horace  to  prepare  for  next  day,  and  would  work  at 
it  for  a  little,  and  then  drop  his  dictionary  with  a  loud 
slap  on  the  floor.  Soon  he  would  begin  to  fidget,  and 
then  catch  sight  of  Arthur  reading,  and  something  in  his 
expression  would  amuse  him.  He  drew  nearer  him  a 
piece  of  sermon  paper  which  Nellie's  pen  was  busy  de- 
vouring on  behalf  of  the  next  Saturday  Magazine^  and 
began  making  a  caricature.  At  the  same  moment  perhaps 
I  would  observe  below  lowered  eyelids  that  Arthur  was 
drawing  me,  and  so  I  began  to  draw  my  mother,  and 
Nellie  catching  the  infection,  began  to  draw  Maggie.  (If 
you  gave  her  pulled-back  hair  and  a  tall  forehead,  the 
family  would  easily  recognize  it.)  And  then  perhaps  my 
father,  pausing  in  his  work,  would  see  Hugh  with  his 
tongue  protruding  from  the  comer  of  his  mouth  (for  that 
is  the  posture  in  which  you  can  draw  best)   and  say: 

"Dear  boy,  have  you  finished  your  preparation  for 
to-morrow?    What  are  you  doing*?" 

Hugh  would  allow  he  hadn't  quite  finished  his  prep- 
aration, not  having  begun  it,  and  my  father  would  look 


CAMBRIDGE  211 

at  his  drawing,  and  his  mouth,  the  most  beautiful  that 
ever  man  had,  would  uncurl,  until  perhaps  he  threw  back 
his  head  and  laughed  with  that  intense  merriment  that 
was  so  infectious.  Possibly  he  might  not  be  amused,  and 
a  little  grave  rebuke  followed;  he  returned  to  his  Cyprian 
and  we  all  sat  quiet  again.  But  the  criticism  of  the 
family  was  that  this  was  "Papa's  game,  and  he  made  the 
rules."  For  he,  unable  to  get  on  with  his  Cyprian,  or 
arriving  at  the  end  of  a  bit  of  work,  would  interrupt  at 
will  the  mumness  which  was  imposed  on  his  behalf.  But 
if  Maggie  or  I  finished  what  we  were  doing,  we  might  not 
make  general  conversation.  .  .  .  And  then  the  door 
would  open,  and  Beth  looked  in,  and  said,  "Eh,  it's 
dressing-time,"  and  her  lovely  old  face  would  grow  alight 
with  love  when  she  looked  on  my  mother,  her  child  of 
the  elder  family,  and  five  more  of  her  children  of  the  sec- 
ond generation.  From  my  father  there  would  always  be 
a  delicious  word  of  welcome  for  her,  and  he  would  say : 

"Beth,  you're  interrupting  us  all.  Go  away.  Your 
watch  is  wrong." 

"Nay,  sir,  it  isn't,"  said  Beth — she  always  said  "sir" 
to  him,  whatever  his  title  was — "It's  gone  half-past 
seven."  And  she  beamed  and  nodded,  perfectly  at  ease 
in  this  solemn  assembly.  With  her  (who  counted  of 
course  as  one  of  it)  there  were  eight  in  that  little  stuffy 
room,  where  we  fidgeted  and  sat  and  read.  And  what 
would  not  I  give,  who  with  one  other  alone  survive  from 
those  evenings,  to  have  an  hour  of  them  again,  in  that 
inconvenient  proximity,  surrounded  by  the  huge  love  of 
a  family  so  devoted  and  critical  of  each  other,  with  the 
two  amongst  them  whom  nobody  criticized,  my  mother 
with  her  spectacles  on  her  forehead,  and  Beth  looking  in 
at  the  door? 


212  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

Then  jaundice  descended  on  me  like  the  blur  of  a 
London  fog,  and  through  the  depression  of  it,  there 
seemed  no  ray  that  could  penetrate.  But  my  mother 
managed  to  effect  that  entry,  as  of  course  she  always 
would,  and  she  came  back  one  dripping  afternoon  from 
Grasmere,  with  a  packet  in  her  hand. 

"As  it's  all  so  hopeless,"  she  said,  "I  bought  some  lead 
soldiers.    Oh,  do  let  us  have  a  battle." 

She  poured  a  torrent  of  these  metal  warriors  on  to  a 
table  by  my  bed.  There  were  cannons  with  springs  that 
shot  out  peas,  and  battalions  of  infantry,  and  troops  of 
cavalry.  It  was  she,  you  must  understand,  who  wanted 
to  play  soldiers,  and  to  a  jaundiced  cynic  of  twenty  that 
necessarily  was  quite  irresistible.  Who  could  have  re- 
sisted a  mother  who  asked  you  at  her  age  to  play  soldiers'? 
We  shot  down  regiments  at  a  time,  for  when  you  enfilade 
a  line  of  lead  soldiers  with  a  pea,  if  you  hit  the  end 
man,  he  topples  against  the  next  one,  and  the  next  against 
the  next,  till  there  are  none  left  standing.  The  peas  flew 
about  the  room,  rattled  against  washing-basins  and  tapped 
at  the  window-panes,  and  I  felt  much  better.  Then 
we  bombarded  Beth  who  came  to  know  if  I  wouldn't  like 
some  dinner,  and  as  I  wouldn't,  it  was  time  to  go  to 
sleep. 

"A  nice  little  bit  of  beef,"  began  Beth. 

"If  you  say  beef  again,  I  shall  be  sick,"  said  the  invalid. 

"Nay,  you  won't,"  said  Beth  hopefully. 

Then  to  my  mother : 

"Eh,  dear,  do  go  and  dress,"  she  said,  "or  you'll  keep 
everybody  waiting." 

My  mother  shot  a  final  pea. 

"I  won't  be  the  conventional  mother,"  she  said,  "and 
smooth  your  pillow  for  you.    Nor  will  I  peep  in  on  tiptoe 


CAMBRIDGE  213 

after  dinner  to  see  if  you're  asleep.     But,  my  darling,  I 
know  you'll  be  better  to-morrow  I    Won't  you?" 

King's  College,  Cambridge,  whither  my  father  ac- 
companied me  in  October,  had,  scarcely  twenty  years 
previously,  become  an  open  College;  for  centuries  before 
that,  it  had  been,  as  was  originally  the  intention  of  the 
pious  founder,  Henry  VI,  a  close  monastic  corporation 
consisting  of  Eton  scholars  destined  for  the  priesthood. 
If  a  boy,  say,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  won  a  scholarship  at 
Eton,  and  was  thus  on  the  Royal  Foundation  there,  it  fol- 
lowed that  unless  he  was  supremely  idle  or  vicious,  he 
obtained  in  due  rotation,  without  any  further  examina- 
tion, a  King's  scholarship,  when  he  went  up  to  the  Uni- 
versity. After  that,  often  while  he  was  still  an  under- 
graduate, he  became  a  fellow  of  King's,  and  for  the  rest 
of  his  life  the  bounty  of  Henry  VI  supplied  him  with 
commons,  lodging,  and  an  income  of  £200  a  year  pro- 
vided he  did  not  marry,  till  he  became  a  senior  fellow, 
when  his  emolument  was  doubled.  At  the  time  of  its 
foundation,  the  college  was  a  regal  and  magnificent  en- 
dowment for  the  encouragement  of  learning  and  the  edu- 
cation of  priests,  but  long  before  this  Etonian  sanctuary, 
consisting  of  fellows  and  scholars,  was  violated  by  the 
rude  hordes  of  barbarians  from  other  schools,  the  system 
had  become  one  of  those  scandalous  and  glorious  anachro- 
nisms, that  take  rank  with  such  institutions  as  pocket- 
boroughs,  where  the  local  magnate  could  nominate  his 
own  friends  to  represent  the  views  of  the  nation  in  Parlia- 
ment. 

The  founder's  idea  had  been  that  from  year  to  year 
the  band  of  scholars  going  up  from  Eton  should  keep 
the  torch  of  learning  alight,  and  grow  old  in  celibate  fine- 


214  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ness  and  wisdom.  No  doubt  there  may  have  been  some 
very  minor  Erasmuses  thus  trained  and  nurtured,  and 
given  stately  leisure  for  the  prosecution  of  their  studies 
and  the  advancement  of  sound  learning,  but  such  a  system 
was  liable  to  many  abuses,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  acutely 
suffered  from  them.  A  Fellow  of  King's,  thus  supported 
for  life  by  the  bounty  of  the  King,  was  under  no  compul- 
sion to  study;  he  was  perfectly  at  liberty  to  be  lodged, 
boarded,  and  supplied  with  a  pocket-money  of  £200  or 
£400  a  year,  without  doing  anything  at  all  to  earn  it. 
Strange  crabbed  creatures  were  sometimes  the  result  of 
this  monastic  indolence,  for  (as  would  have  been  the 
case  in  a  monastery)  there  was  no  abbot  or  prior  to  allot 
tasks  and  duties  to  the  fellows.  Some,  of  course,  did 
tutorial  work  among  the  scholars,  but  for  the  rest,  who 
might  or  might  not,  according  to  their  own  inclination, 
work  at  Greek  texts  and  scholia,  there  was  no  rule ;  and 
a  man  with  no  ambition  in  his  work,  meeting  his  fellows 
only  once  a  day  at  the  high  table  in  Hall,  if  he  chose 
to  go  there,  and  otherwise  living  alone  might  easily  turn 
into  a  very  odd  sort  of  person.  One  of  them,  who  died 
not  so  long  before  I  went  up,  was  never  seen  outside  his 
rooms  till  dusk  began  to  fall :  then  he  would  totter,  stick 
in  hand,  out  on  to  the  great  grass  lawn  in  the  court,  and 
poke  viciously  at  the  worms,  ejaculating  to  himself,  "Ah, 
damn  you,  you  haven't  got  me  yet !"  After  this  edifying 
excursion,  he  would  go  back  to  his  rooms  and  be  seen  no 
more  till  dusk  next  day.  All  his  life  since  the  age  of 
twelve  or  so,  the  bounty  of  Henry  VI  had  supported  him, 
and  until  the  worms  finally  did  "get"  him,  nothing  could 
deprive  him  of  his  emoluments.  How  far  short  of  the  in- 
tention of  the  Royal  Founder  the  college  fell  may  be 
conjectured  from  the  list  of  the  fellows,  which  from  first 


CAMBRIDGE  215 

to  last  contains  no  name  of  the  slightest  eminence  or  dis- 
tinction as  a  scholar,  except  that  of  the  late  Walter  Head- 
lam,  who  was  not  an  Etonian. 

The  reconstruction  of  King's  took  place  some  years  be- 
fore I  went  up,  and  no  more  of  these  life-fellows  were 
appointed.  Henceforth  fellowships  expired  at  the  end 
(I  think)  of  six  years,  though  they  could  be  prolonged  if 
the  holder  was  doing  tutorial  work  in  the  college,  or  was 
engaged  in  such  research  as  made  it  proper  that  his  term 
should  be  extended.  But  such  men  as  were  already  life- 
fellows  were  not  shorn  of  their  fellowships,  and  whether 
or  no  they  were  resident,  whether  or  not  they  were  en- 
gaged in  any  work  which  might,  ever  so  faintly,  be  held 
to  be  congruous  to  the  intention  of  the  founder,  they 
were  still  entitled  for  life  to  their  income,  their  commons, 
and  dinner,  and  if  they  chose  to  reside  in  the  college  to  a 
set  of  fellows'  rooms.  At  that  time  the  college  buildings 
would  not  nearly  hold  all  the  undergraduates,  and  fresh- 
men, unless  they  were  scholars,  must  have  lodgings  out- 
side college;  but  in  spite  of  this  certain  life-fellows  still 
clung  to  their  privileges,  and  continued  to  retain  sets 
of  rooms  in  Fellows'  Buildings,  which  they  never  oc-' 
cupied.  One  of  these,  engaged  in  wholly  unscholastic 
work  in  London,  used  to  come  up  for  a  week  or  two  at 
the  end  of  the  Christmas  term,  but  for  the  rest  of  the  year 
his  rooms  stood  vacant,  while  two  others,  who  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge  never  appeared  in  Cambridge  at  all, 
had  another  set  of  rooms,  which  were  used  merely  as 
guest-rooms  by  other  fellows.  A  fourth  specimen  of  sur- 
vivals such  as  the  founder  never  contemplated  was 
ancient  and  dusky  in  appearance,  and  never  left  King's  at 
all,  though  he  took  no  part  in  the  academic  life  of  the 
place,  appearing  only  in  chapel  and  in  Hall,  and  occupy- 


216  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ing  himself  otherwise  with  making  faint  wailings  on  a 
violin.  .  .  .  But  a  friend  of  mine  and  I  chanced  on  the 
discovery  that  if  you  whistled  as  he  crossed  the  court  to 
chapel,  he  stopped  dead,  and  after  a  little  pause,  pro- 
ceeded cautiously  again.  A  repetition  of  the  whistle 
would  make  him  retrace  his  steps,  and  it  was  possible 
by  continuing  to  whistle,  to  drive  him  back  to  his  rooms. 
This  was  extremely  interesting,  but  the  cause  baffled  con- 
jecture. Later  on,  however,  after  years  of  eremite  seclu- 
sion, he  suddenly  burst  into  activity,  like  a  volcano  long 
believed  to  be  extinct,  gave  tea-parties  in  his  rooms  with 
a  leg  of  cold  mutton  on  the  sideboard  and  a  table  laid 
as  for  dinner,  and  was  induced  to  play  the  violin  at  col- 
lege concerts.  Then  (Ossa  piled  on  Pelion  for  wonder) 
he  married  a  girl  in  the  Salvation  Army,  and  disappeared 
from  these  haunts  of  celibacy.  Again  I  cannot  imagine 
that  the  founder  contemplated  that  the  head  of  the  col- 
lege should  resemble  our  Provost,  for  Dr.  Okes,  though 
resident,  was  approaching  or  had  already  reached  his 
ninetieth  year,  and  inhabited  in  complete  seclusion  the 
Provost's  Lodge.  I  am  sure  I  never  set  eyes  on  him  at 
all;  he  took  no  part  whatever  in  college  business,  as  in- 
deed his  advanced  years  prevented  him  from  doing,  but 
there  he  had  lingered  on  from  year  to  year  without  a  single 
thought  of  resignation  entering  his  venerable  head. 
Though  totally  past  work,  he  was  Provost  of  King's  and 
Provost  of  King's  he  remained,  a  drone  apparently  im- 
perishable. 

Others,  however,  of  these  life-fellows  justified  them- 
selves by  a  busy  existence;  there  was  the  Vice-Provost, 
Augustus  Austen  Leigh,  who  performed  all  the  presiden- 
tial duties  of  the  Provost;  there  was  Mr.  J.  E.  Nixon, 
Dean  of  the  college,  lecturer  on  Latin  prose  to  under- 


CAMBRIDGE  217 

graduates,  and  Professoi  of  Rhetoric  at  Gresham  Col- 
lege, London,  who  surely  made  up  for  these  drones  who 
abused  the  bounty  of  the  founder,  by  his  prodigious  ac- 
tivities. In  appearance  he  was  the  oddest  of  mortals,  a 
little  over  five  feet  tall,  wearing  always,  even  when  he 
went  down  to  play  lawn-tennis  in  the  Fellows'  Garden, 
a  black  tail-coat,  and  boots  of  immense  length,  of  which 
the  toes  pointed  sharply  upwards.  He  had  only  one 
hand,  and  that  the  left;  his  right  hand  was  artificial, 
covered  with  a  tight  black  kid  glove.  He  had  also  only 
one  eye  and  that  the  right,  but  the  other  was  marvellously 
sharp.  He  made  a  tennis-ball  to  nestle  in  the  crook  of 
his  arm,  and  then  by  a  dexterous  jerk  of  his  body  flung 
it  into  the  air  and  severely  served  it. 

His  mind  was  like  a  cage-full  of  monkeys,  all  intent  on 
some  delirious  and  unintelligible  business.  "Show  me  a 
man  with  a  green  nose,"  he  once  passionately  exclaimed, 
"and  I'll  believe  in  ghosts."  He  had  a  voice  as  curious  as 
his  boots,  in  range  a  tenor,  in  quality  like  the  beating  of 
a  wooden  hammer  on  cracked  metal  plates,  and  every 
week  he  held  a  glee-singing  meeting  after  Hall  in  his 
rooms,  and  refreshed  his  choir  with  Tintara  wine,  hot  tea- 
cakes,  and  Borneo  cigars.  We  sang  catches  and  rounds 
and  madrigals,  he  beating  time  with  a  paper-knife,  which, 
as  he  got  shriller  and  more  excited,  would  slip  from  his 
hand  and  fly  with  prodigious  velocity  across  the  room. 
He  always  took  the  part  of  first  tenor,  and  whoever  gave 
the  key  on  the  piano  put  it  up  a  tone  or  two,  in  order  to 
hear  Nixon  bark  and  yelp  at  some  preposterous  C.  If 
it  was  obviously  out  of  range  he  would  say  (running  all 
his  words  into  each  other  like  impressions  on  blotting 
paper^  :  "SurelythatsratherhighisthatonlyA^"  ....  Then 
the  unaccountable  mistake  was  discovered  and  we  started 


218  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

again.  Where  he  found  all  these  rounds  and  catches  I 
cannot  conjecture:  much  music,  certainly,  that  I  have 
heard  in  Nixon's  room  has  never  reached  my  ears  again, 
nor  have  I  ever  seen  anyone,  except  those  who  attended 
these  meetings,  who  was  acquainted  with  the  following 
catch.  It  started  Lento^  and,  under  the  strokes  of  the 
paper-knife  quickened  up  to  andante  and  allegro,  and 
ended  prestissimo  possibile.  The  words  ran  thus,  start- 
ing with  a  first  tenor  lead : 

Mr.  Speaker,  though  'tis  late, 

I  must  lengthen  the  debate. 

The  debate. 

Pray  support  the  chair! 

Pray  support  the  chair! 

Mr.  Speaker,  though  'tis  late, 

I  must  lengthen  the  debate. 

Question!  question!    Order!  order! 

Hear  him !    Hear  him !    Hear  him !    Hear ! 

{Da  capo:  da  capo:  da  capo.) 

Every  moment  it  got  quicker,  the  barks  and  yells  over 
"Order!  Order!"  grew  louder  and  louder,  until  the 
whole  kennel  was  a  yelp,  and  when  everyone  was  quite 
exhausted,  and  the  pandemonium  no  longer  tolerable, 
Nixon  brought  down  the  paper-knife  (if  it  had  not  flown 
out  of  his  hand)  with  a  loud  bang  on  the  table  and  wiped 
his  face  and  laughed  for  pleasure.  Then  he  poured  out 
Tintara  wine,  and  gave  us  Borneo  cigars,  while  he 
tumbled  an  avalanche  of  music  out  of  a  bookcase  and 
tried  to  find  "I  loved  thee  beautiful  and  kind." 

Apart  from  glee-singing,  lawn-tennis  and  Latin  prose, 
his  mind  chiefly  ran  on  argument  and  on  what  he  called 
"starting  a  hare."    He  would  advance   some   amazing 


^--^^jl^^sJSS?' 


'Jv--^ 


"her  grace"    (a  domestic  caricature) 


[Page  219 


CAMBRIDGE  221 

proposition,  such  as  "Why  shouldn't  we  all — no,  that 
wouldn't  do,  but  why  not  play  lawn-tennis  and  sing  glees 
in  the  morning,  and  work  in  the  evening'?"  He  argued 
about  the  most  casual  topic:  if  you  said,  "It's  a  fine  day," 
he  cleared  his  throat  raspingly,  and  dropped  something 
he  was  carrying,  and  said,  "It  all  depends  on  what  you 
mean  by  fine.  If  you  mean  sun  and  blue  sky,  granted ; 
but  why  shouldn't  you  call  it  fine  if  there  are  buckets  of 
rain^  It  all  depends  what  you  mean  by  'fine.'  A  fish 
now " 

"I  meant  an  ordinary  fine  day,"  began  his  bewildered 
guest. 

"Very  well:  but  I  say  'fish.'  I'm  a  fish  and  you're  a 
fish.  To  a  fish  probably  the  wetter  it  is,  the  finer  it  is, 
and  there  you  are." 

There  you  were :  long  before  anybody  else  Nixon  had 
invented  the  art  of  preposterous  conversation,  which  Mr. 
Hichens  wrongly  attributes  to  Oscar  Wilde.  To  Nixon 
it  was  not  only  an  art,  a  product  of  instinct,  but  a. science, 
a.  product  of  definite  reasoning.  He  would  not  change 
the  subject,  when  his  argument  had  been  burnt  to  ashes 
(often  by  himself),  but  would  confidently  blow  on  the 
cinders,  expecting  some  unconjecturable  Phoenix  to  arise 
from  them. 

By  far  the  most  notable  of  the  life-fellows  was  Oscar 
Browning,  without  mention  of  whom  no  adequate  idea 
of  Cambridge  life  in  the  late  eighties  and  early  nineties 
can  possibly  be  arrived  at.  Though  King's  was  in  large 
measure  a  college  quite  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  Uni- 
versity, giving  itself  (so  said  the  rest  of  the  University) 
unwarrantable  airs,  Oscar  Browning  (whom  it  is  simpler 
to  designate  as  O.B.  for  he  was  never  known  otherwise) 
pervaded  not  King's  only,  but  the  whole  of  Cambridge, 


222  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

with  his  pungent  personality.  His  was  a  perennial  and 
rotund  youthfulness,  a  love  of  loyal  adventure  not  really 
challenged  by  the  most  devout  of  his  competitors,  for 
who  except  O.B.  at  the  age  of  forty-five  or  so,  ever  bought 
a  hockey-stick,  and  imperilled  a  majestic  frame  in  order 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  being  hit  on  the  shins  by  the  Duke 
of  Clarence,  then  an  undergraduate  at  Trinity,  and  heir- 
presumptive  to  the  English  throne?  I  was  still  a  junior 
at  Marlborough  when  these  Homeric  events  happened, 
but  years  afterwards,  O.B.  was  still  talking  about  the 
''awfully  jolly"  games  of  hockey  he  had  with  Prince 
Eddy.  .  .  .  Even  the  fact  of  his  playing  hockey  at  all, 
which  he  certainly  did,  affords  a  key  to  the  intensity  of 
his  activities. 

He  rode  a  tricycle,  and  once,  accompanying  him  on  a 
bicycle  with  funereal  pedallings,  while  he  discoursed  of 
Turkish  baths  and  Grand  Dukes,  and  Taormina  and  Eng- 
lish history,  I  observed  that  he  stuck  fast  in  a  muddy 
place,  and  prepared  to  dismount,  in  order  to  shove  him 
out  of  it.  But  he  obligingly  told  me  to  do  nothing  of 
the  kind,  for  some  casual  youth  was  on  the  path  beside 
his  enmired  tricycle  to  whom  he  said : 

"Charlie,  old  boy,  give  me  a  shove.    Hal  Ha! 

"Charlie  old  boy,"  with  his  face  a-shine  with  smiles, 
gave  the  required  push,  and  O.B.  rejoined  me,  as  I 
swooped  and  swerved  along  the  road  in  order  to  go  very 
slowly. 

"Charlie  is  my  gyp's  son,"  he  said.  "Such  a  jolly  boy. 
Thanks  awfully,  Charlie.  Well,  there  I  was,  when  the 
Grand  Duke's  yacht  came  into  Taormina.  And,  by  the 
way,  do  you  know  the  Maloja*?  The  Crown-Princess  of 
Germany  came  there  one  year  when  I  was  in  the  hotel,  so 
I  dressed  myself  like  a  Roman  proconsul,  in  a  white  toga 


CAMBRIDGE  223 

of  bath  towels,  ha,  ha,  and — and — really  these  ruts  are 
most  annoying — and  a  laurel  wreath,  and  went  out  to 
meet  her  Royal  Highness.  I  had  a  retinue  of  four  young 
men  who  were  staying  at  the  hotel  as  lictors,  with  axes 
and  sticks,  and  I  read  a  short  address  to  her  to  welcome 
her,  and  we  had  lunch  together,  and  played  lawn-tennis 
and  it  was  all  awfully  jolly  and  friendly  and  unconven- 
tional. Why  aren't  we  all  natural,  instead  of  being 
afraid  of  poor  Mrs.  Grundy,  whose  husband  surely  died 
so  long  ago?  She  has  never  married  again,  which  shows 
she  must  be  a  most  unpopular  female.  Most  females,  I 
notice,  are  so  unpopular:  they  never  know  when  they're 
wanted,  and  their  hearts  are  always  bigger  than  their 
heads.  Not  of  course  your  dear  mother — those  charming 
Lambeth  garden  parties — and  dear  Lady  Salisbury.  I 
saw  the  Queen  when  I  was  at  Balmoral  last  year — my 
bootlace  has  come  undone,  so  careless  of  Charlie  not  to 
notice  it — and  how  hopelessly  benighted  is  Cambridge  al- 
together I  Lord  Acton  came  to  stay  with  me  the  other  day 
— I  think  my  tricycle  wants  oiling — and  dined  with  me 
at  the  High  Table.  Nixon  was  sitting  on  his  other  side, 
propounding  conundrums  about  bed-makers,  and  hoping 
that  he  would  sing  glees  with  him.  Ha  I  Ha !  Every  boy 
ought  to  realize  his  youth,  instead  of  wasting  his  energies 
over  elegiacs.    When  the  Grand  Duke  came  into  Taor- 

mina " 

It  is  really  impossible  to  render  the  variety  of  O.B.'s 
general  conversation,  of  which  the  foregoing  is  but  a  dim 
reproduction.  His  performances,  too  (the  expression  of 
himself  in  deeds),  were  just  as  various,  and  yet  everyone 
in  Cambridge  was  aware  that  behind  this  garish  behaviour 
there  was  a  real,  a  forcible  and  a  big  personality.  His 
performances  chiefly  expressed  themselves  in  tricyclings 


224  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

and  bathings,  in  lectures  on  English  history,  which  no- 
body attended,  and  in  At-Homes  on  Sunday  evening, 
which  everybody  attended.  He  had  a  set  of  four  rooms 
(the  first  being  a  bathroom)  which  were  all  thrown  open 
to  anybody,  and  if  you  had  said  you  wanted  a  bath  in 
the  middle  of  the  party,  O.B.  would  certainly  have  said, 
"Ha,  ha  I  awfully  jolly,"  have  given  you  a  sponge  and  a 
towel  and  have  come  in  to  help.  Next  to  that  came  his 
bedroom,  lined  with  bookshelves  from  floor  to  ceiling, 
with  a  bronze  reproduction  of  the  Greek  "Winged  Sleep" 
over  his  bed;  then,  not  a  whit  more  public  than  these 
apartments  came  two  big  sitting-rooms,  in  one  of  which 
was  a  grand  piano,  and  four  small  harmoniums  of  various 
tones,  one  flute-like,  one  more  brazen  in  quality,  and  two 
faintly  resembling  wheezy  and  unripe  violins.  On  these 
— each  with  its  performer  and  a  miniature  score — O.B. 
and  Bobby,  and  Dicky  and  Tommy  would  execute  some 
deliberate  quartette,  or  with  the  piano  to  keep  them  all 
moderately  together  would  plunge  with  gay,  foolhardy 
courage  into  the  Schumann  quintette.  Never  was  there 
a  more  incredible  sight  (you  could  hardly  believe  you 
saw  it)  than  that  of  O.B.  pedalling  away  at  this  Obeo- 
phone  (for  thus  this  curious  harmonium  was  aptly 
named)  with  his  great  body  swaying  to  and  fro  and 
strange  crooning  sounds  coming  out  of  his  classical  mouth 
to  reinforce  the  flutings  of  his  melody,  while  Bobby  and 
Dicky  and  Tommy,  nimble-fingered  members  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Musical  Society,  sat  with  brows  corrugated  by 
their  anxiety  to  keep  in  time  with  O.B.  They  never 
learned  that  they  were  attempting  an  impossibility,  but 
followed  him  faint  yet  pursuing  as  he  galloped  along  a 
few  bars  ahead,  or  suddenly  slowed  down  so  that  they 
shot  in  front  of  him.     At  the  conclusion  he  would  pat 


CAMBRIDGE  225 

them  all  on  the  back,  and  say,  "Awfully  jolly  Brahms  is, 
or  was  it  Beethoven*?"  and  proceed  to  sing,  "Funiculi, 
funicula"  himself.  .  .  .  Groups  formed  and  reformed; 
here  would  be  a  couple  of  members  of  the  secret  and 
thoughtful  society  known  as  "The  Apostles"  with  white 
careworn  faces,  nibbling  biscuits  and  probably  discussing 
the  ethical  limits  of  Determinism ;  there  the  President  of 
the  Union  playing  noughts  and  crosses  with  a  Cricket 
Blue;  there  an  assembly  of  daring  young  men  who  tore 
their  gowns,  and  took  the  board  out  of  their  caps,  in  order 
to  present  a  more  libertine  and  Bohemian  appearance, 
when  they  conversed  with  the  young  lady  in  the  tobaccon- 
ist's. Dons  from  King's  or  other  colleges  fluttered  in  and 
out  like  moths,  and  the  room  grew  ever  thicker  with  the 
smoke  of  innumerable  cigarettes.  But  O.B.,  however 
mixed  and  incongruous  was  the  gathering,  never  lost  his 
own  hospitable  identity  in  the  crowd;  waving  bottles  of 
curious  hock  he  would  spur  on  the  pianist  to  fresh  deeds 
of  violence,  making  some  contribution  to  the  discussion 
on  Determinism,  and  promise  to  speak  at  the  next  debate 
at  the  Union,  as  he  wandered  from  room  to  room,  bald 
and  stout  and  short  yet  imperial  with  his  huge  Neronian 
head,  and  his  endless  capacity  for  adolescent  enjoyment. 
Age  could  not  wither  him  any  more  than  Cleopatra;  he 
was  a  great  joyous  ridiculous  Pagan,  with  a  genius  for 
geniality,  remarkable  generosity  and  kindliness,  a  good- 
humoured  contempt  for  his  enemies,  of  whom  he  had 
cohorts,  a  first-rate  intellect  and  memory,  and  about  as 
much  stability  of  purpose  as  a  starling.  His  extraordi- 
nary vitality,  his  serene  imperviousness  to  hostility,  his 
abandoned  youthfulness  were  the  ingredients  which  made 
him  perennially  explosive.  Everyone  laughed  at  him, 
many  disapproved  of  him,  but  for  years  he  serenely  re- 


226  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

mained  the  most  outstanding  and  prominent  personality 
in  Cambridge.  Had  he  had  a  little  more  wisdom  to 
leaven  the  dough  of  his  colossal  cleverness,  a  little  more 
principled  belief  to  give  ballast  to  his  f  riskiness,  he  would 
have  been  as  essentially  great  as  he  was  superficially  gro- 
tesque. 

A  small  college  as  King's  then  was,  splits  up  into  far 
more  sharply  defined  cliques  than  a  large  one,  and  it 
was  not  long  before  I  found  myself  firmly  attached  to  a 
small  group  consisting  in  the  main  of  Etonians  belonging 
either  to  King's  or  Trinity.  The  younger  fellows  of  the 
college  mixed  very  democratically  with  undergraduates 
of  all  years,  and  the  head  of  this  vivid  group  was  cer- 
tainly Monty  James,  subsequently  Provost  of  King's  and 
now  Provost  of  Eton.  Walter  Headlam,  perhaps  the 
finest  Greek  scholar  that  Cambridge  has  ever  produced, 
and  Lionel  Ford,  now  headmaster  of  Harrow,  both  of 
them  having  lately  taken  their  degrees,  were  of  the  com- 
pany, so  too  were  Arthur  Goodhart,  then  working  for  a 
degree  in  music,  and  a  little  later  among  junior  members 
R.  Carr  Bosanquet,  now  Professor  at  Liverpool.  We 
were  all  members  of  the  Pitt  Club,  that  delightful  and 
unique  institution  where,  to  the  end  of  your  life,  once 
being  a  life-member,  your  letters  are  stamped  without  any 
payment,  and  most  of  us  were,  or  soon  became,  members 
of  a  literary  society  called  "The  Chitchat,"  in  which  on 
Saturday  night  each  in  rotation  entertained  the  society  at 
his  rooms  with  an  original  paper  on  any  subject  as  in- 
tellectual fare,  and  with  coffee  and  claret-cup,  anchovy 
toast,  and  snuff,  handed  solemnly  round  in  a  silver  box, 
for  physical  stimulus.  Sometimes  if  the  snuff  went 
round  too  early,  awful  reverberations  of  sneezing  from 
the  unaccustomed  punctuated  the  intellectual  fare,  and 


CAMBRIDGE  227 

I  remember  (still  with  pain)  reading  a  paper  on  Mar- 
lowe's Faustus^  during  which  embarrassing  explosions 
unnerved  me.  I  had  reason  to  quote  (at  a  very  impressive 
stage  of  this  essay)  certain  lines  from  that  tragedy,  which 
with  stage  directions  came  out  as  follows : 

Faustus.  Where  are  you  damned'?  {Sneezings.) 

Mephistopheles.     In  Hell.  {Sneezings  and  loud  laughter.) 

For  where  I  am  is  Hell   {Sneezing  and  more 

laughter). 
And  where  Hell  is  {Uproar)  there  must  I  ever 
be. 

On  another  occasion  a  prominent  philologist  whose 
turn  it  was  to  regale  us,  found  that  he  had  not  had  leisure 
to  write  his  paper  on  "Manners"  and  proposed  to  address 
us  on  the  subject  instead.  He  strode  about  the  room 
gesticulating  and  vehement,  stumbling  over  the  hearth- 
rug, lighting  cigarettes  and  throwing  them  away  instead 
of  his  match,  while  he  harangued  us  on  this  interesting 
ethical  topic,  with  interspersed  phrases  of  French  and 
German,  and  odd  English  words  like  "cocksuredom."  As 
this  ludicrously  proceeded,  a  rather  tense  silence  settled 
down  on  "The  Chitchat";  its  decorous  members  bit  their 
lips,  and  prudently  refrained  from  looking  each  other  in 
the  face,  and  there  were  little  stifled  noises  like  hiccups  or 
birds  in  bushes  going  about  the  room,  and  the  sofa  where 
three  sat  trembled,  as  when  a  kettle  is  on  the  boil.  Then 
he  diverged,  via^  I  think,  the  exquisite  urbanity  of  the 
ancient  Greeks,  to  Greek  sculpture,  and  proceeded  as  a 
practical  illustration  to  throw  himself  into  the  attitude  of 
Discobolus.  At  that  precise  moment.  Dr.  Cunningham 
©f  Trinity,  who  was  drinking  claret-cup  and  trembling  a 
great  deal,  completely  lost  control  of  himself.     Claret- 


228  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

cup  spurted  from  his  nose  and  mouth;  I  should  not  have 
thought  a  man  could  have  so  violently  choked  and 
laughed  simultaneously,  without  fatal  damage  to  himself. 
That  explosion,  of  course,  instantaneously  spread  round 
the  entire  company,  except  the  amazed  lecturer,  and  Dr. 
Cunningham,  finding  he  could  not  stop  laughing  at  all, 
seized  his  cap  and  gown  and  left  the  room  with  a  rapid 
and  unsteady  step.  Even  when  he  had  gone  wild  yells 
and  slappings  of  the  leg  came  resonantly  in  through  the 
open  windows  as  he  crossed  the  court.  .  .  . 

But  the  Love-feast  of  the  Clan  was  on  Sunday  evening, 
when  in  rotation,  they  dined  in  each  other's  rooms.  This 
institution  (known  as  the  "T.A.F."  or  "Twice  a  Fort- 
night") had  been  inaugurated  by  Jim  Stephen,  that  bril- 
liant and  erratic  genius,  then  in  London,  editing  The 
Mirror  and  astounding  the  Savile  Club,  who  a  year  or  two 
later  returned  to  Cambridge  again,  and,  until  his  final  and 
melancholy  eclipse,  diffused  over  everyone  who  came 
across  him  the  beam  of  his  intellect  and  personality.  Of 
him  I  shall  speak  later :  at  present  the  clan  of  friends  met, 
so  to  speak,  under  the  informal  hegemony  of  Monty 
James.  Intellectually  (or  perhaps  aesthetically)  I,  like 
many  others,  made  an  unconditional  surrender  to  his 
tastes,  and,  with  a  strong  prepossession  already  in  that 
direction,  I  became  convinced  for  the  time — and  the  time 
was  long — that  Dickens  was  the  St.  Peter  who  held  the 
keys  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  of  literature.  When  din- 
ner at  the  T.A.F.  was  over,  Monty  James  might  be  in- 
duced to  read  about  the  birthday-party  of  the  Kenwigses, 
with  a  cigarette  sticking  to  his  upper  lip,  where  it  bobbed 
up  and  down  to  his  articulation,  until  a  shout  of  laughter 
on  the  reader's  part  over  Mr.  Lillyvick's  glass  of  grog, 
cast  it  forth  on  to  the  hearth-rug.    He  almost  made  me 


CAMBRIDGE  229 

dethrone  Bach  from  his  legitimate  seat,  and  by  a  revolu- 
tionary movement  place  Handel  there  instead,  so  magnifi- 
cent were  the  effects  produced,  when  with  him  playing 
the  bass,  and  me  the  treble  from  a  pianoforte  arrange- 
ment for  two  hands,  we  thundered  forth  the  "Occasional 
Overture."  He  was  a  superb  mimic,  and  at  the  T.A.F. 
and  elsewhere  a  most  remarkable  saga  came  to  birth,  in 
which  the  more  ridiculous  of  the  Dons  became  more  ridicu- 
lous yet.  And  when  on  these  Sunday  evenings  the  Dick- 
ens reading,  and  the  "Occasional  Overture,"  and  some 
singing  and  Saga  were  done,  a  section  of  the  T.A.F.  would 
go  to  O.B.'s  "at  home,"  and  mingle  with  inferior  mortals. 

Another  society  common  to  many  members  of  the 
T.A.F.  was  the  Decemviri  Debating  Society.  To  this, 
some  time  during  my  undergraduate  days,  I  was  elected, 
though  I  do  not  think  I  ever  expressed  any  wish  to  be- 
long to  it,  for  when  it  came  to  making  a  speech,  terror, 
then  as  now,  invariably  deprived  me  of  coherent  utter- 
ance, and  a  rich  silence  was  all  that  I  felt  capable  of  con- 
tributing to  these  discussions.  Knowing  this  I  never  at- 
tended any  meeting  at  all,  and  as  a  rule  of  the  society  was 
that  if  any  member  absented  himself  for  a  term  (or  was 
it  two?)  from  the  debates,  he  should  be  deprived  of  the 
privileges  of  membership,  I  received  one  day  a  notice  of 
the  next  debate,  at  which  there  was  private  business  to 
be  transacted  in  the  matter  of  my  own  expulsion.  Un- 
justifiable indignation,  for  this  time  only,  put  terror  to 
flight,  and  I  was  allowed  to  open  another  debate  in  the 
place  of  that  already  arranged  for,  and  to  make  a  speech 
to  show  reason  why  I  should  not  be  expelled.  My 
motion  was  triumphantly  carried,  and  I  never  went  to  a 
meeting  of  the  Decemviri  again. 

I  suppose  it  must  have  been  that  belated  year  of  volun- 


230  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

tary  reading  at  Marlborough,  which  enabled  me  to  win 
an  exhibition  at  King's  at  the  end  of  my  first  term; 
after  that  for  a  year  and  a  half  I  was  utterly  devoid  of 
all  interest  in  classical  subjects.  There  was  not  the  small- 
est spur  to  industry  or  appreciation  provided  by  tutors  or 
lecturers :  if  you  attended  lectures  and  were  duly  marked 
off  as  present,  you  had  conformed  to  the  rite,  but  nothing 
you  heard  could  conceivably  stimulate  your  zeal.  The 
classical  tutor  under  whose  academic  frigidity  we  fol- 
lowed Thucydides'  account  of  the  Peloponnesian  War 
stood  on  a  dais  at  the  end  of  the  lecture  room,  and  in- 
decently denuded  his  subject  of  any  appeal  to  interest. 
He  put  his  head  on  one  side  and  said,  "Then  came  Sphac- 
teria:  I  don't  know  what  Sphodrias  was  about,"  and  so 

nobody  knew  what  either  Sphodrias  or  Mr.  X was 

about.  He  looked  over  exercises  in  Greek  prose  as  well : 
on  one  occasion  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  drag  in  a 
quantity  of  tags  from  Plato  and  Thucydides,  and  re- 
ceived, for  the  only  time,  his  warm  approval.  A  piece  of 
Greek  prose,  according  to  academic  standards,  appeared 
to  be  good,  in  proportion  as  it  "brought  in"  quotations 
and  phrases  plucked  from  Thucydides  or  Plato;  Baboo 
English  was  its  equivalent  in  more  modern  tongues.  Tags 
and  unusual  words  and  crabbed  constructions  from  the 
most  obscure  passages  were  supposed  to  constitute  good 
Greek  prose,  just  as  in  the  mind  of  a  Bombay  or  Calcutta 
student,  the  memoir  of  Onoocool  Chunder  Mookerjee 
represented  an  example  of  dignified  English.  To  quote 
from  that  immortal  and  neglected  work,  "Having  said 
these  words,  he  hermetically  sealed  his  lips  never  to  open 
them  again.  He  became  sotto  voce  for  a  few  hours,  and 
he  went  to  God  about  6  p.m."  As  this  sublime  death- 
bed scene  appears  to  the  ordinary  Englishman,  so  would 


CAMBRIDGE  231 

the  prose  which  Mr.  X approved  have  appeared  to 

the  ordinary  Greek  of  the  time  of  Pericles.  .  .  .  But  he 
had  been  Senior  Classic,  and  carried  on  the  wonderful 
tradition,  and  in  other  respects  was  classical  tutor  and 
an  eager  but  inefficient  whist-player.  Nixon,  an  equally 
traditional  Latin  scholar,  trained  us  to  produce  a  similar 
Latinity,  and  we  got  Monty  James  to  imitate  them  both. 
Any  dawning  of  love  for  classical  language  receded,  as 
far  as  I  was  concerned,  into  murk  midnight  again,  and 
having  temporarily  justified  my  existence  by  winning  an 
exhibition,  I  deliberately  proceeded  for  the  next  year 
and  a  half  to  follow  more  attractive  studies.  A  year's 
hard  work  on  the  approved  Baboo  lines,  I  calculated, 
would  be  sufficient  to  secure  success  in  the  Classical 
Tripos,  which  was  the  next  event  of  any  importance. 

Young  gentlemen  with  literary  aspirations  usually 
start  a  new  University  magazine,  which  for  wit  and 
pungency  is  designed  to  eclipse  all  such  previous  efforts, 
and  I  was  no  exception  in  the  matter  of  this  popular 
gambit.  Another  freshman  lodging  in  the  same  house  as 
myself  was  joint-editor,  and  so  was  Mr.  Roger  Fry,  two 
or  three  years  our  senior,  and  some  B.A.  whose  name  I 
cannot  recollect.  Mr.  Roger  Fry  certainly  drew  the  il- 
lustration on  the  cover  of  the  Cambridge  Fortnightly^ 
which  represented  a  tremendous  sun  of  culture  rising  be- 
hind King's  College  Chapel.  O.B.  contributed  a  poem  to 
it,  so  also  did  my  brother  Arthur,  and  Mr.  Barry  Pain 
sent  us  one  of  the  best  parodies  in  the  language,  called 
"The  Poets  at  Tea,"  in  which  Wordsworth,  Tennyson, 
Christina  Rossetti,  Swinburne  and  others  are  ludicrously 
characteristic  of  themselves.  He  also  tried  to  galvanize 
the  Cambridge  Fortnightly  into  life  by  one  or  more  ad- 
mirable short  stories,  and  Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickinson  ap- 


232  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

plied  the  battery  with  him.  But  the  unfortunate  infant 
was  clearly  stillborn,  and  considering  the  extreme  feeble- 
ness of  most  of  its  organs,  I  do  not  wonder  that  it  was, 
after  the  lapse  of  a  term  or  so,  quite  despaired  of.  It  had 
really  never  lived:  it  had  merely  appeared.  My  share  in 
the  funeral  expenses  was  about  five  pounds,  and  I  was 
already  too  busy  writing  Sketches  from  Marlborough^ 
which  was  duly  and  magnificently  published  within  a 
year,  to  regret  the  loss.  Fearing  to  be  told  that  I  had 
better  attend  to  my  Greek  and  Latin,  I  did  not  inform 
my  father  of  this  literary  adventure;  then,  when  a  local 
printer  and  publisher  at  Marlborough,  to  my  great  glee, 
undertook  its  production,  I  thought  he  would  consider  it 
very  odd  that  I  had  not  told  him  of  it  before  and  so  I 
did  not  tell  him  at  all.  The  book  had  a  certain  local 
notoriety,  and  naturally  enough,  the  fact  of  it  reached 
him,  and  he  wrote  me  the  most  loving  letter  of  remon- 
strance at  my  having  kept  it  from  him.  There  was  no 
word  of  blame  for  this  amateur  expenditure  of  time  and 
energies,  but  I  divined  and  infinitely  regretted  that  I  had 
hurt  him.  And  somehow  I  could  not  explain,  for  I  still 
felt  that  if  he  had  known  I  was  working  at  it,  he  cer- 
tainly would  have  suggested  that  I  might  have  been  better 
occupied.  Already,  though  half-unconsciously,  I  knew  to 
what  entrancing  occupation  I  had  really  determined  to 
devote  my  life,  and  though  I  might  have  made  a  better 
choice,  I  could  not,  my  choice  being  really  made,  have 
been  better  occupied  than  in  practising  for  it.  The  book 
in  itself,  for  the  mere  lightness  which  was  all  that  it 
professed,  was  not  really  very  bad:  the  ominous  part 
about  it  (of  which  the  omens  have  been  amply  fulfilled) 
being  the  extreme  facility  with  which  it  was  produced. 


CAMBRIDGE  233 

Of  all  the  temples  in  the  world,  built  by  the  wisdom 
of  cunning  artificers,  and  consecrated  by  the  love  of  rever- 
ent hearts,  none  can  surpass  and  few  can  equal  the  glory 
of  that  holy  and  beautiful  house  which  the  founder  of 
King's  decreed  for  the  worship  of  God,  with  its  jewelled 
windows  and  the  fan-vaulting  of  its  incomparable  roof. 
Half-way  up,  separating  choir  from  nave,  is  the  tall  oak 
screen  stretching  from  side  to  side,  on  which  stands  the 
organ,  a  "huge  house  of  sounds"  with  walls  of  gilded 
pipes,  and,  at  the  corners,  turrets  where  gold  angels  with 
trumpets  to  their  mouths  have  alighted.  The  nave  on 
Sunday  afternoons  in  the  short  days  of  winter  would  be 
nearly  dark,  but  for  the  soft  glow  of  the  innumerable  wax 
candles  with  which  the  choir  was  lit,  flowing  over  the 
organ  screen.  At  half-past  three,  the  hour  of  those  Sun- 
day afternoon  services,  there  would  still  be  a  little  light 
outside,  though  that  would  have  faded  altogether  be- 
fore service  was  over,  and  just  opposite  where  I  sat  was 
the  window  that  I  love  best  in  all  the  world.  The  Saviour 
has  risen  on  Easter  morning,  and  before  him  in  dress  of 
sapphire  and  crimson  Mary  Magdalene  is  kneeling.  She 
had  been  weeping  and  had  heard  behind  her  the  question, 
"Woman,  why  weepest  thou*?"  Her  bereaved  heart  had 
answered,  and  he  whom  she  supposed  to  be  the  gardener 
had  said,  "Mary."  It  was  then,  in  that  window,  that  she 
knew  him,  and  turning,  she  bowed  herself  to  the  ground, 
with  one  hand  stretched  out  to  him,  and  said,  "Rabboni !" 
In  the  garden  of  the  Resurrection  He  stood,  with  the 
flowers  of  the  spring  about  His  feet,  instead  of  the  spike- 
nard, very  precious,  with  which  she  had  anointed  them  for 
his  burial.  .  .  .  During  the  Psalms  for  the  twenty- 
seventh  evening  of  the  month,  when  she  who  sowed  in 
tears  reaped  in  joy,  the  window  would  grow  dark  against 


234  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

the  faded  light  outside,  and  the  wise  and  tranquil  candle- 
light spread  like  a  luminous  fog  to  the  cells  of  the  vault- 
ing above.  At  the  end  of  the  service,  the  red  curtain 
across  the  arch  in  the  screen  was  drawn  back,  and  you 
peered  into  the  dusk  of  the  nave,  and  the  dark  of  the 
night.  .  .  . 

Or  else  on  week-days  a  consultation  of  the  musical  bill 
of  fare  on  the  chapel  door  would  bring  you,  a  little  before 
anthem  time,  into  the  nave,  for  Wesley's  "Wilderness" 
was  soon  to  be  sung.  The  choir,  when  service  was  going 
on,  was  behind  the  screen  and  the  crimson  curtain,  but 
the  candle-light  there,  aided  by  a  few  sconces  here,  made 
visible  the  roof,  and  the  black  silhouettes  of  the  trumpet- 
ing angels  on  the  organ.  Then  the  solo  bass  began: 
there  was  the  fugue  of  the  waters  breaking  out,  and  the 
treble  solo  and  chorus  of  the  flight  of  sorrow  and  sighing. 
Perhaps  you  waited  for  the  conclusion  of  inaudible 
prayers,  on  the  chance  that  Dr.  Mann  would  play  a  Bach- 
fugue  at  the  end,  after  the  crimson  curtain  had  been 
drawn  back  and  the  white  choir  had  gone  into  its  vestries. 
There  was  this  reward,  let  us  say,  that  afternoon,  for  the 
gamha  on  the  swell  started  the  melodious  discussion,  and 
its  soliloquy  provoked  an  answer  in  the  same  words  but 
with  another  voice.  The  duet  "thickened  and  broad- 
ened," fresh  voices  joined;  they  found  a  second  theme, 
and  gradually  step  by  step,  the  whole  organ,  but  for  one 
keyboard,  silent  as  yet,  took  up  the  jubilant  wrangling. 
What  the  gamha  had  stated,  the  diapason  now  pro- 
claimed: what  the  diapason  had  shouted  was  thundered 
from  the  pedals.  And  then  the  last  keyboard  was  in  use, 
for  what  but  the  Tubas  could  so  have  imposed  themselves 
and  penetrated  that  immense  and  melodious  rioting  of 
sound*?     Perhaps  the  golden  angels  at  the  four  corners 


CAMBRIDGE  235 

of  the  organ,  "opened  their  mouths  and  drew  in  their 
breath,"  and  spoke  through  their  celestial  trumpets. 

It  is  impossible  to  disentangle  and  reduce  to  chronology 
the  infinity  of  interests  that  interweaved  themselves  with 
these  three  undergraduate  years,  and  the  reader  must 
S)Tnpathetically  partake  of  a  macedoine  of  memories,  that 
were  the  ingredients  in  the  enthralling  dish.  Outside 
Cambridge,  which  daily  became  more  absorbing,  I  had 
the  emotional  experience  of  seeing  Miss  Mary  Anderson 
double  the  part  of  Hermione  and  Perdita  in  The 
Winter  s  Tale,  and  fell  violently  in  love  with  her.  Never 
surely  was  there  so  beautiful  a  Shakespearian  heroine, 
never  did  another  actress  make  such  music  of  the  tale  of 
the  flowers  she  had  gathered.  No  sculptor's  skill  or 
whiteness  of  Pentelic  marble  ever  approached  the  glory 
of  that  queenly  figure,  and  with  what  amazement  of  joy 
I  saw  it  stir  and  cease  to  be  a  statue  when,  with  a  waving 
of  lovely  arms,  that  sent  up  a  cloud  of  powder,  there  was 
no  statue  any  more  but  the  queen,  living  and  moving 
again.  I  bought  a  photograph  of  her,  carried  it  about 
with  me  by  day,  and  by  night  put  it  on  a  table  by  my 
bed,  fearing  all  the  time  that  my  father  would  discover 
it,  for  he  would  not  have  cared  much  about  this  ex- 
perience of  mine.  Not  for  nearly  thirty  years  later  did  I 
meet  my  Hermione  in  the  flesh  and  lay  my  belated  hom- 
age before  her. 

Marlborough  also  was  a  lodestar,  appearing  already, 
as  must  needs  be,  of  lesser  magnitude,  now  that  new  con- 
stellations directed  my  voyagings,  but,  being  granted  an 
exeat  of  two  nights  in  order  to  witness  the  opening  of 
Truro  Cathedral,  I  spent  both  in  the  train  in  order  to  get 
half  a  day  at  my  school.     Already  the  old  order  had 


236  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

changed;  the  values  were  different,  and  even  as  I  had 
once  suspected,  a  few  months  had  sufficed  to  do  that. 
Yet  the  other  aspect  was  true  also;  I  had  absorbed  and 
assimilated  something  from  the  Wiltshire  upland  which 
was  imperishably  part  of  my  personality :  my  very  iden- 
tity would  have  been  something  other  than  it  was,  had 
I  not  lived  and  grown  up  there.  But  many  ties  which 
had  seemed  close  had  drooped  and  loosened,  and  now  I 
saw  which  were  the  closest  of  all,  and  they,  just  one  or 
two  of  them,  were  as  taut  as  ever;  that  of  Beesly,  still 
merry-eyed  behind  the  pince-nez  to  which  he  had  taken, 
and  that  of  the  friend  who  on  the  last  day  of  term  had 
sat  with  me  in  the  field  waiting  for  chapel-bell.  He 
absented  himself  from  an  hour  of  morning-school,  and 
met  me,  dishevelled  with  a  night  journey,  at  the  station. 
As  we  passed  through  the  town  we  bought  rolls  and 
sausages,  and  while  I  had  a  bath,  he  came  in  and  out, 
making  breakfast  ready  in  the  study  that  had  been  mine, 
and  for  that  hour  it  was  as  if  the  rind  of  the  last  months 
had  been  peeled  off,  and  the  old  friendship  glowed  like 
the  heart  of  the  fruit.  Otherwise,  the  little  impression 
I  had  made  on  that  shining  shore  was  already  washed  by 
the  advancing  tide,  and  its  edges  were  blunt,  while,  a 
little  higher  up  the  beach,  the  sand-castles  of  others  were 
growing  tall  and  turreted  under  vigorous  spades.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE    CIRCLE    IS    BROKEN 


EVEN  away  from  Carr bridge,  which  in  those  under- 
graduate years  was  necessarily  the  hot  hub  of  the 
universe,  life  remained  as  highly  coloured  as  at  the  time 
when  Lambeth  and  Addington  first  flung  open  their  ador- 
able pasturages.  It  was  thrilling  to  know  that  Robert 
Browning  was  coming  to  dinner  one  night,  to  be  grasped 
by  the  hearty  hand  that  had  written  the  poems  of  which  a 
fives  competition  had  procured  me  a  copy.  There  was 
but  a  small  party  on  the  night  that  I  remember,  and  after 
dinner  my  father  moved  up  to  take  the  place  next  him, 
and  beckoned  to  me  to  close  up  on  the  other  side.  Some- 
how a  mention  came  of  a  volume  of  Austin  Dobson's,  and 
Robert  Browning  preserved  a  cheerful  silence  till  some 
direct  question  was  put  to  him.  Then,  drinking  off  his 
port,  he  made  a  notable  phrase. 

"Well,  some  people  like  carved  cherry-stones,"  he  said. 

I  fancy  he  always  avoided  talking  of  his  own  works, 
and  that  my  father  knew  this,  for  certainly  no  allusion 
was  made  to  them.  But,  as  we  rose,  he  volunteered  a 
question  to  my  father,  saying,  "What  of  my  work  do 
you  like  best?"  On  which  my  father  replied : 

"Your  lyrics." 

Robert  Browning  gave  some  great  gesticulation;  he 
seems  to  me  now  to  have  rubbed  his  hands,  or  jumped  or 
stamped  a  foot. 

237 


238  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

"Lyrics?"  he  said.     "I  have  deskfuls  of  them." 

In  consequence,  I  still  faintly  hope  that  some  day  there 
may  be  discovered  a  great  ream  of  lyrics  by  Robert 
Browning,  for,  as  far  as  I  know,  "deskfuls"  have  not  yet 
appeared. 

On  another  occasion  Tennyson  was  there.  Of  his  con- 
versation I  have  no  sort  of  recollection,  the  reason  for 
which  lapse  may  be  probably  accounted  for  by  the  fact 
that  he  didn't  say  anything.  But  I  had  picked  his  note 
of  acceptance  out  of  my  m.other's  waste-paper  basket  and 
the  envelope  signed  in  the  bottom  left-hand  corner,  both 
torn  across,  so  he  could  not  leave  me  comfortless. 

How  very  odd  these  dinner-parties,  great  or  small, 
would  have  appeared  at  the  present  day!  There  was 
but  one  circulation  of  wine  after  the  ladies  had  rustled 
forth,  and  even  when  they  had  gone,  there  was  nothing 
in  the  shape  of  tobacco,  which,  combined  with  the  indo- 
lent progression  of  the  decanter,  surely  accounted  for 
the  austerity  of  Tennyson.  A  long  sitting  of  abstemious 
gentlemen  was  succeeded  by  a  short  sitting  in  the  draw- 
ing-room, and  then  the  bell  sounded  at  ten,  and  the  whole 
company  trooped  into  the  chapel  for  a  slightly  ab- 
breviated evensong.  Sometimes,  this  service  was  before 
dinner;  otherwise,  at  its  conclusion,  round  about  half- 
past  ten,  the  guests  departed,  for  after  this  long  de- 
votional interlude,  it  was  frankly  impossible  to  resume  a 
festive  sociability.  Already  the  cigarette-habit  had  made 
its  footing  in  most  houses,  to  the  extent,  anyhow,  of  a 
guest,  if  so  decadently  inclined,  having  opportunity  of  in- 
dulging his  lust,  but  neither  at  Lambeth  nor  at  Adding- 
ton  was  there  any  parleying  with  the  enemy.  My  father 
intensely  disliked  the  smell  of  tobacco,  and  once  only 
when  the  present  King,  as  Duke  of  York,  dined  at  Lam- 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  239 

beth,  was  an  after-dinner  cigarette  allowed.  On  that  oc- 
casion I,  greatly  daring,  told  my  father  that  he  liked  a 
cigarette  after  dinner  (so  it  was  popularly  supposed),  and 
for  the  first  time,  the  gallery  of  portraits  was  veiled  be- 
hind the  unusual  incense.  There  were  many  great  stem 
houses  in  the  eighties,  which  kept  the  flag  of  no  surrender 
flying  in  the  dining-room,  but  I  doubt  if  any  except  my 
father's  held  out  till  after  the  middle  of  the  nineties.  He 
knew  of  but  ignored  the  existence  of  a  smoking-room  at 
Lambeth  and  Addington,  but  neither  in  drawing-room  or 
dining-room,  nor  until  the  hour  of  bedroom  candles  (elec- 
tric lighting  being  still  an  exceptional  illumination)  was 
there  the  chance  of  a  cigarette. 

A  story,  hen  trovato^  it  may  be,  was  told  in  this  re- 
gard, as  to  how,  when  a  Pan-Anglican  conference  was  in 
progress  at  Lambeth  and  the  whole  house  was  buzzing 
with  bishops,  my  father  had  occasion  late  one  night  to 
visit  the  bedroom  of  one  of  the  prelates,  with  some  paper 
of  agenda  for  next  day:  He  got  no  answer  to  his  tap 
on  the  door,  and  entered,  to  find  the  occupant  on  his  knees 
before  the  fire-place.  My  father,  supposing  that  he  was 
at  his  private  devotions  silently  withdrew  himself,  and 
tiptoed  down  the  corridor  again.  The  devotional  tenant, 
unaware  of  any  entrance,  but  knowing  the  rule  of  the 
house,  continued  to  inhale  his  cigar,  and  puff  the  aromatic 
evidence  of  his  crime  up  the  chimney.  .  .  .  Though  my 
father  knew  that  his  chaplains  smoked,  he  would  never 
acknowledge  it,  and  if  a  letter,  difficultly  drafted  and 
brought  to  him  for  his  approval,  bore  unmistakable  evi- 
dences of  this  aid  to  inspiration,  he  would  sniff  at  the 
original  letter  and  its  answer,  and  say,  "He  must  have 
written  it  in  a  smoking-carriage."  And  though,  again, 
he  knew  quite  well  that  all  his  three  sons  smoked  like 


240  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

chimneys,  I  have  heard  him  confidently  assert  that  none 
of  us  ever  did.  He  would  have  liked  to  believe  that. 
In  fact  he  would  have  liked  it  so  much,  that  his  fervour 
allowed  him  to  believe  it. 

But  I  am  sure  it  never  entered  his  head  that  my  mother 
smoked.  She  did:  and  once  after  a  journey  of  a  day  and 
a  night  and  half  a  day  to  the  Riff  el  Alp,  my  father,  abso- 
lutely unfatigued,  insisted  on  the  whole  family  getting 
on  to  a  glacier  of  some  sort  without  delay.  My  mother 
racked  with  headache,  but  thinking  the  air  would  do  her 
good,  came  with  us,  but  having  gained  the  glacier,  refused 
to  proceed,  and  sat  down  on  a  rock  on  the  moraine  to 
wait  for  her  family's  return.  She  indicated  that  I  should 
stay  with  her,  and  as  soon  as  the  family's  back  was 
turned  she  whispered,  "Oh,  give  me  a  cigarette,  Fred." 
By  some  strange  mischance  I  hadn't  got  one,  and  was  only 
possessed  of  a  small  and  reeking  clay  pipe  and  some  to- 
bacco. But  I  filled  and  lit  it  for  her,  and  there  she  sat 
smoking  her  clay  pipe  like  a  gipsy-woman,  which  made 
me  laugh  so  much  that  the  rest  of  the  family  turned  round 
en  bloc  to  see  what  was  happening.  Nothing  appeared 
to  be  happening,  because  she  was  wise  enough  to  hand  the 
pipe  back  to  me,  and  on  they  went.  Then  she  had  a 
little  more,  and  her  headache  was  routed.  .  .  . 

That  Riff  el  Alp  holiday  was  one  of  the  most  sump- 
tuous. Mountain-climbing  with  guides  and  porters  is  an 
expensive  pursuit,  but  my  father  "treated  me"  straight  off 
to  any  two  first-class  peaks  I  wanted  to  ascend.  My  in- 
stant first  choice  was  the  Matterhorn,  and  after  a  few 
days'  gymnastics  on  less  austere  summits  I  set  forth, 
chaperoned  by  the  most  zealous  of  Alpinists,  Mr.  Toswill, 
to  make  this  adorable  ascent.  We  slept  in  the  Schwarz- 
See  Hotel,  and  starting  at  a  moonless  midnight  to  the 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  241 

light  of  a  lantern,  stumbled  on  in  that  inconvenient  il- 
lumination till  the  first  hint  of  dawn  made  the  east  dove- 
coloured  and  the  lantern  could  be  quenched.  The  excite- 
ment of  the  climb  quickened  the  perceptions,  and  that 
opening  flower  of  day  was  the  very  glory  of  the  Lord, 
first  shining  on  the  earth.  We  still  climbed  in  the  clear 
dusk,  but  high,  incredibly  high  above  us  the  top  of  the 
great  cliff  grew  rose-coloured,  as  the  sun,  still  below  our 
horizon,  smote  it  with  day.  The  sky  was  clear  and  the 
stars  grew  dim,  as  the  great  halls  of  heaven  were  slowly 
flooded  with  light.  Step  by  step  the  day  descended 
from  peak  to  shoulder  of  our  mountain  till  it  met  us 
on  the  rocky  stair.  Dent  Blanche,  Rothorn,  Gabelhorn, 
Weisshorn  were  dazzled  with  the  dawn:  looking  down 
into  the  Zermatt  valley  was  still  like  gazing  into  dark 
clear  water. 

But  that  clarity  of  morning  was  not  for  long.  On  all 
sides  clouds  were  forming — it  is  a  mistake  as  a  rule  to 
speak  of  clouds  "coming  up"  :  they  just  happen — and  be- 
fore we  reached  the  famous  shoulder,  it  was  certain  that 
if  we  were  to  make  our  peak,  we  must  race  against  the 
thickening  weather.  Already  the  range  along  the  Theo- 
dul  was  blanketed,  and  mist-wreaths  were  beginning  to 
form  on  the  east  side  of  our  mountain  below  us.  If  they 
stopped  there  and  did  not  form  higher  up  they  would  do 
us  no  harm,  but  nobody  would  choose  to  be  above  the 
shoulder  of  the  Matterhorn  in  cloud.  So  at  high  speed — 
duly  recorded  in  the  Visitors'  Book  at  the  hut — we  made 
our  peak,  opened  the  bottle  of  Bouvier  (most  of  which 
in  that  low  pressure  of  the  air  rose  like  a  geyser  and  in- 
toxicated the  snows)  and  began  the  descent.  The  air  was 
notably  still :  not  a  breath  of  wind  stirred,  but  somewhere 


242  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

below  us  there  were  boomings  of  thunder  not  very  re- 
mote. 

Before  we  got  back  to  the  shoulder  a  wisp  of  cloud 
flicked  round  the  edge  of  the  precipice  which  plunges  a 
sheer  four  thousand  feet  on  to  the  Zmutt  glacier,  and  in  a 
moment  we  were  enveloped  by  it.  The  sun  was  ex- 
punged, the  cold  suddenly  grew  intense,  and  snow  denser 
than  I  thought  possible  that  snow  could  be,  began  to  fall. 
In  five  minutes  we  wore  the  thickest  white  mantles,  so  too, 
which  was  less  convenient,  did  the  rocks,  which  at  this 
point  are  not  only  difficult  by  reason  of  their  steepness, 
but  dangerous  because  of  the  downward  slope  of  the 
strata.  The  thunder  moved  up  to  meet  us,  in  fact  we 
were  just  beginning  to  pass  into  the  storm-clouds  them- 
selves. The  air  was  highly  charged  with  electricity,  for 
presently  the  points  of  our  ice-axes  fizzled  and  sang  like 
kettles  on  the  boil.  Then  below,  a  light,  violet  and  vivid, 
leaped  suddenly  out  of  the  murk  of  snow,  and  the 
thunder  reverberated  sharp  as  the  crack  of  a  dog-whip. 
Once  our  rope  got  fouled,  and  we  all  had  to  untie  our- 
selves and  stand  perched  on  our  steps,  while  the  guide 
wrought  to  release  it.  Forty  highly  exciting  minutes  en- 
abled us  to  crawl  down  through  the  storm,  and  reach  clear 
air  again,  and  though  I  am  glad  to  have  dived  through  a 
thunderstorm  on  the  Matterhorn,  I  will  willingly  dis- 
pense with  any  further  experience  of  the  sort.  Those 
forty  minutes  rattling  with  ambient  thunder  were  much 
too  tense  to  allow  of  conscious  alarm,  and  I  never  wished 
I  was  "safe  home"  again.  But  I  would  never  choose  to  do 
it  a  second  time. 

My  second  selection  was  the  Dent  Blanche,  but  after 
starting  for  it  a  blizzard  made  the  ascent  impossible.  So 
for  fear  of  losing  my  second  big  peak  altogether — things 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  243 

like  the  Breithom,  ascents  of  the  Riffelhorn  from  the 
glacier,  and  a  subsequent  crossing  of  the  eastern  face  of 
the  Matterhorn  were  picked  up  by  the  way — I  chose  the 
Zienal  Rothhorn,  and  with  Nellie  made  an  entrancing 
ascent.  There  was  a  huge  cowl  of  snow  on  the  summit, 
and  sheltered  by  this  from  the  wind  we  sat  for  nearly 
an  hour  in  the  blaze  of  the  translucent  day.  Coming 
down  an  ill-fitting  boot  tore  the  base  of  one  of  her  nails, 
and  she  was  in  bed  next  day  with  considerable  pain.  But 
with  what  scorn  she  answered  my  query  as  to  whether, 
on  her  part,  the  expedition  had  been  worth  such  a  pay- 
ment. Simultaneously  there  began  a  week's  bad  weather, 
and  we  produced  a  stupendous  Swiss  Saturday  Magazine. 

My  third  year  at  Cambridge,  it  may  be  remembered,  I 
had  resolved  to  devote  to  a  strenuous  course  of  the 
classical  tongues,  and  the  autumn  of  1889  saw  me  pro- 
vided with  a  shelf  of  interleaved  Latin  and  Greek  authors 
(in  order  to  make  quantities  of  profound  notes  on  the 
opposite  page) ;  with  a  firm  determination  to  remember 
every  crabbed  phrase  in  case  of  finding  some  approximate 
English  equivalent  in  passages  set  for  translation  from 
English  into  Baboo  Latin  or  Greek,  and  triumphantly 
dragging  it  in;  with  pots  of  red  ink  to  underline  them, 
and  with  an  optimistic  determination  of  getting  a  first 
in  my  Classical  Tripos.  Eustace  Miles  who  could  work 
longer  and  more  steadily  than  anyone  I  ever  came  across 
before  or  since,  became  the  anchor  to  keep  me  moored 
on  the  rock  of  industry,  despite  the  engaging  tides  and 
currents  that  made  me  long  to  drift  away,  and  I  would 
take  my  books  to  his  room  and  vow  that  I  would  remain 
glued  to  them  as  long  as  he.  If  I  worked  alone  my  in- 
firmity of  purpose  was  something  ghastly  to  contemplate. 


244  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

but  the  living  proximity  of  a  friend  who  set  so  shining 
an  example  shamed  me  into  industry.  He  was  bound  for 
the  same  port  as  I,  namely,  a  first  in  the  Classical  Tripos, 
and  was  a  master  in  the  art  of  inventing  ludicrous  phrases 
which  contained  the  key  to  dates,  and  memorized  the 
events  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  for  me  in  a  few  unfor- 
gettable sentences.  We  had  intervals  when  we  set  the 
table  on  its  side  to  serve  as  a  back  wall  for  some  diminu- 
tive game  of  squash,  and  then  refreshed  and  dusty  we 
followed  the  odious  symptoms  that  attended  the  plague 
in  Athens.  I  quite  lost  sight  again  of  the  beauty  of  the 
classical  languages,  for  just  now  the  learning  of  them 
was  the  mere  grinding  of  the  mills  that  should  produce  a 
particular  grist.  It  was  no  leisurely  artistic  apprecia- 
tion, like  that  which  had  fitfully  inspired  me  under  Beesly 
and  during  my  last  year  at  school ;  I  but  wanted  to  com- 
mit a  sort  of  highway  robbery  on  Sophocles  and  Virgil, 
and  take  from  them  the  purse  that  should  pay  my  way 
for  a  first-class  ticket.  After  two  terms  of  this,  for  the 
only  time  in  my  life,  I  was  considered  to  be  in  danger 
of  growing  stale  from  sheer  industry,  and  for  a  fortnight 
of  the  Easter  vacation,  in  accordance  with  my  father's 
suggestion,  Monty  James  took  two  other  undergraduates 
and  myself  for  a  bookless  tour  through  Normandy  and 
Brittany.  It  was  nominally  a  walking-tour,  but  we  went 
by  train,  visiting  Rouen,  Caen,  Bayeux,  and  Lisieux,  and 
finishing  up  with  Amiens  and  Beauvais.  We  played 
quantities  of  picquet,  and  the  Nixon  saga  was  enriched  by 
a  Pindaric  Ode  in  praise  of  Pnyxon  winner  in  the  tricycle 
race  against  two  Divinity  professors.  .  .  . 

The  last  paper  in  the  Tripos,  after  translations  into 
English  from  Latin  and  Greek  verse  and  prose,  and 
translation  into  Latin  and  Greek  from  English,  was  in 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  245 

classical  history,  of  which  I  knew  nothing  whatever,  and 
so  I  sat  up  three-quarters  of  the  night  and  read  through 
the  whole  of  two  short  history  primers.  In  the  few  hours 
that  intervened  between  that  degrading  process  and  the 
history  paper,  it  was  impossible  to  forget  crucial  dates 
or  events  of  any  magnitude,  and  by  dragging  in  all  col- 
lateral information,  and  dishing  it  up  with  a  certain 
culinary  skill  acquired  by  years  of  Saturday  Magazine,  I 
produced  a  voluminous  vamp  of  information.  And  then 
after  some  days  of  waiting  came  the  lists,  and  the  year 
of  Babooism  had  won  its  appropriate  reward,  for,  sure 
enough,  I  had  taken  a  first.  As  for  the  history,  I  had  pro- 
duced a  paper  that  caused  me  to  be  congratulated  by 
the  examiner  (Dr.  Verrall)  on  my  "grasp" — acquired  the 
night  before — and  was  advised  by  him  to  take  up  history 
for  a  second  Tripos.  That,  knowing  better  than  he  what 
the  tenacity  of  my  grasp  really  was,  I  thought  better  to 
decline. 

Having  taken  a  first  (such  a  first  I)  my  father  was  more 
than  pleased  that,  pending  the  choice  of  a  profession, 
which  I  had  already  secretly  registered,  I  should  stop  up 
another  year  and  attempt  to  perform  a  similar  feat  in 
some  other  branch  of  knowledge.  Should  that  also  be 
accomplished,  I  should  be  of  a  status  that  could  see  a 
Fellowship  at  King's  within  possible  horizons,  and  he 
wanted  no  finer  threshold  of  life  for  any  of  his  sons  than 
a  Fellowship  of  his  college.  Here  then  his  scholastic 
sympathies  were  completely  engaged,  but  infinitely  more 
potent  than  they  was  his  desire  that  we  should  all  of  us 
enter  the  priesthood  of  the  Church  to  which,  with  a 
unique  passion,  all  his  life  was  dedicated.  Arthur  at  this 
time,  had  already  been  an  Eton  master  for  over  five  years, 
and  had  not  taken  orders,  and  it  was  not  likely  now  that 


246  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

he  would.  I  was  the  next,  and  when  my  father  more 
than  gladly  let  me  stop  up  at  Cambridge  with  a  view 
to  a  second  Tripos,  for  another  year,  he  coupled  with 
his  permission  the  desire  that  I  should  attend  some  Divin- 
ity lectures.  Never  shall  I  admire  tact  or  delicacy  more 
than  his  upon  this  subject.  For  years  while  at  school 
he  had  put  before  me,  never  insistently  but  always  po- 
tently, his  hope  that  I  should  be  a  clergyman,  so  that 
now  I  was  quite  familiar  with  it.  But  at  the  very  moment 
when  a  strongly  expressed  desire  on  his  part  might  have 
determined  me,  he  forbore  to  express  such  desire  at  all : 
if  I  was  to  be  a  clergyman  I  must  have  the  personal,  the 
individual  sense  of  vocation,  and  not  take  orders  because 
he  wished  it.  Already  I  knew  that  he  wished  it,  but  he 
would  not  stir  a  finger,  now  that  I  had  come  to  an  age 
when  definite  choice  opened  before  me,  to  influence  my 
decision.  He  wished  me  to  attend  Divinity  lectures  in 
order  to  learn  something  before  I  either  chose  or  rejected, 
but  beyond  that  he  never  said  a  word  in  argument  or 
persuasion,  nor  even  asked  me  if  I  had  attended  these 
lectures.  At  the  very  moment,  in  fact,  when  his  wish, 
had  he  expressed  it,  that  I  should  take  a  theological 
Tripos  with  a  view  to  ordination,  would  have  had  effect- 
ive weight,  seeing  that  he  was  allowing  me  to  spend  a 
fourth  year  at  Cambridge,  he,  with  a  supreme  and  perfect 
delicacy,  forbore  to  put  a  pennyweight  of  his  own  desires 
into  the  scale,  and  welcomed  the  choice  I  made  of  taking 
up  archaeology  for  a  second  Tripos.  He  merely  wished 
me  to  attend  a  few  divinity  lectures,  and  left  it  at  that. 
Hugh,  meantime,  triumphantly  carrying  the  banner  of 
early  failure  which  I  had  so  long  held  against  all  comers, 
had  unsuccessfully  competed,  after  a  year  of  cramming, 
in  the  Indian  Civil  Service  examination,  which  had  been 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  247 

his  first  choice  of  a  profession.  Having  failed  in  that, 
he  was  to  come  up  to  Trinity  in  October,  unblushing  and 
unhonoured.  I  passed  the  banner  to  him  with  all  good 
wishes. 

There  were  some  weeks  of  long  vacation  after  the 
archaeological  decision  was  made  which  I  now  know  to 
have  been  loaded  with  fate  so  far  as  my  own  subse- 
quent life  was  concerned,  though  at  the  time  those  scrib- 
blings  I  then  indulged  in  seemed  to  be  quite  as  void  of 
significance  as  any  particular  number  of  the  Saturday 
Magazine  had  been.  For  one  morning,  at  Cambridge, 
where  I  had  returned  for  a  few  weeks  before  we  went 
out  to  Switzerland  in  August,  I  desisted  from  the  perusal 
of  Miss  Harrison's  Mythology  and  Monuments  of 
Ancient  Athens^  and  wrote  on  the  top  of  a  piece  of  blue 
foolscap  a  word  that  has  stuck  to  me  all  my  life.  For  a 
long  time  there  had  been  wandering  about  in  my  head 
the  idea  of  some  fascinating  sort  of  modern  girl,  who 
tackled  life  with  uncommon  relish  and  success,  and  was 
adored  by  the  world  in  general,  and  had  all  the  embellish- 
ments that  a  human  being  can  desire  except  a  heart. 
Years  ago  some  adumbration  of  her  had  occurred  in  the 
story  that  Maggie  and  I  wrote  together;  that  I  suppose 
was  the  yeast  that  was  now  beginning  to  stir  and  bubble 
in  my  head.  She  must  ride,  she  must  dance,  she  must 
have  all  the  nameless  attraction  that  attaches  to  those 
who  are  as  prismatic  and  as  hard  as  crystal,  and  above  all 
she  must  talk.  It  was  no  use  just  informing  the  reader 
that  here  was  a  marvellously  fascinating  personality,  as 
Maggie  and  I  had  done  before,  or  that  to  see  her  was  to 
worship  her,  or  that  after  a  due  meed  of  worship  she 
would  reveal  herself  as  no  more  than  husk  and  colouring 
matter.    Explanations  and  assurances  of  that  sort  were 


248  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

now  altogether  to  be  dispensed  with.  Scarcely  even  was 
the  current  of  her  thought,  scarcely  even  were  the  main 
lines  of  her  personality  to  be  drawn:  she  was  to  reveal 
herself  by  what  she  said,  and  thus,  whatever  she  did, 
would  need  no  comment.  There  is  the  plain  presentment 
of  the  idea  that  occupied  my  youthful  mind  when  I  wrote 
Dodo  at  the  top  of  a  piece  of  blue  foolscap,  and  put  the 
numeral  "one"  on  the  top  right-hand  corner;  and  where 
this  crude  story  of  mine  still  puts  in  a  plea  for  originality, 
is  in  the  region  of  its  conscious  plan.  Bad  or  good  (it 
was  undoubtedly  bad)  it  introduced  a  certain  novelty 
into  novel-writing  which  had  "quite  a  little  vogue"  for  a 
time.  The  main  character,  that  is  to  say,  was  made,  in 
her  infinitesimal  manner,  to  draw  herself.  In  staged  and 
acted  drama  even,  that  principle — ^bad  or  good — is  never 
consistently  maintained,  because  other  people  habitually 
discuss  the  hero  and  heroine,  and  the  audience's  concep- 
tion of  them  is  based  on  comment  as  well  as  on  self- 
spoken  revelation.  Also  in  drama  there  is  bound  to  be 
some  sort  of  plot,  in  which  action  reveals  the  actor.  But 
in  this  story  which  I  scribbled  at  for  a  few  weeks,  there 
was  no  sort  of  plot:  there  was  merely  a  clash  of  minor 
personalities  breaking  themselves  to  bits  against  the  cen- 
tral gabbling  figure.  Hideously  crude,  blatantly  inef- 
ficient as  the  execution  was,  there  was  just  that  one  new 
and  feasible  idea  in  the  manner  of  it.  What  I  aimed 
at  was  a  type  that  revealed  itself  in  an  individual  by 
oceans  of  nonsensical  speech. 

I  wrote  with  the  breathless  speed  of  creation  (however 
minute  such  creation  was),  almost  entirely,  but  not  quite, 
for  my  own  private  amusement.  It  was  not  quite  for 
that  internal  satisfaction  alone,  because  as  I  scampered 
and  scamped,  I  began  to  contemplate  a  book  arising  out 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  249 

of  these  scribblings,  a  marketable  book,  that  is  to  say, 
between  covers  and  for  sale.  Eventually,  for  the  infor- 
mation of  any  who  happen  to  remember  the  total  result, 
I  got  as  far  as  the  lamentable  death  of  Dodo's  first  hus- 
band, and  that,  as  far  as  I  knew  then,  was  the  end  of 
the  story.  Dodo  would  be  thus  left  a  far  from  discon- 
solate widow  dangling  in  the  air  like  a  blind-string  in 
front  of  an  open  window.  On  the  last  page  of  the  book, 
she  would  remain  precisely  as  she  had  been  on  the  first; 
she  had  not  developed,  she  had  not  gone  upwards  or 
downwards  in  any  moral  course ;  she  was  a  moment,  a  de- 
tail, a  flashlight  photograph  flared  on  to  a  plate  without 
the  smallest  presentment  of  anything,  except  what  she 
happened  to  be  at  that  moment.  All  this  I  did  not  then 
realize.  .  .  .  There  it  was  anyhow,  and  having  finished 
it,  I  bundled  the  whole  affair  into  a  drawer,  and  with 
that  off  my  mind,  concentrated  again  over  the  Mythology 
and  Monuments  of  Ancient  Athens. 

Then  followed  a  few  weeks  at  the  Rieder  Furca  Hotel, 
above  the  Aletsch  Glacier,  opposite  the  Bel  Alp.  At  that 
time  it  was  a  wooden  structure  of  so  light  and  airy  a 
build  that  without  raising  your  voice  you  could  talk 
through  the  wall  to  the  person  next  door.  Maggie  that 
year  was  obliged  to  go  to  Aix  for  a  course  of  treatment 
and  my  mother  went  with  her,  but,  even  as  it  was,  we 
nearly  filled  the  little  hotel.  The  weather  was  bad, 
an  ascent  of  the  Jungfrau  which  I  made  in  very  thick  soft 
snow,  after  sleeping  for  two  nights  at  the  Concordia  hut 
being  the  only  big  (and  that  an  abominable)  climb,  and 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  "Cotter's  Saturday  Night."  My 
father  had  a  larger  supply  of  books  than  usual,  for  he  was 
busy  with  his  judgment  in  the  Lincoln  trial,  to  be  de- 
livered in  the  autumn.     For  a  couple  of  years  the  case 


250  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

had  been  a  perpetual  anxiety  to  him.  It  was  doubtful 
at  first  whether  he,  as  Archbishop,  possessed  the  jurisdic- 
tion to  try  it,  and  while  personally  (to  put  the  matter 
in  a  nutshell)  he  was  very  unwilling  to  do  so,  he  did 
not  want  the  jurisdiction  of  the  See,  if  it  possessed  it,  to 
lapse.  The  case  was  one  of  illegal  ritual :  and  the  Church 
Association  party,  at  whose  instigation  it  was  started,  had 
obtained  their  evidence  in  a  manner  peculiarly  sordid,  for 
they  had  sent  emissaries  to  spy  on  Bishop  King's  manner 
of  celebrating  the  Holy  Communion.  As  their  object 
was  to  obtain  evidence  on  that  point,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  else  they  could  have  obtained  it,  but  the  notion 
of  evidence  thus  obtained  was  revolting  to  my  father. 
On  the  other  hand  there  was  Bishop  King,  a  man  of  the 
highest  character,  of  saintly  life,  an  old  and  beloved 
friend  of  my  father's,  who  was  thus  accused  of  illegality 
in  matters  which  to  the  ordinary  lay  and  even  clerical 
mind  were  of  infinitesimal  importance.  But  the  indict- 
ment was  that  he  had  offended  against  Ecclesiastical  Law, 
which  my  father  as  head  of  the  Church  was  bound  to  up- 
hold, so  that  when,  after  innumerable  arguments  and  dis- 
cussion, the  Judicial  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council 
found  that  he  had  the  jurisdiction,  he  decided  to  assume 
it.  That  being  so,  he  could  dismiss  the  case  as  being  a 
frivolous  indictment,  but  this  course  undoubtedly  would 
have  caused  a  split  in  the  English  Church,  and  accord- 
ingly he  decided  to  try  it.  It  was  heard  in  February, 
1890,  and  he  reserved  judgment.  It  was  this  pronounce- 
ment that  occupied  him  so  closely  all  that  summer,  and 
he  finished  it  in  September. 

At  the  beginning  of  October,  Hugh  went  up  to  Cam- 
bridge, for  the  assembling  of  freshmen,  and  I  had  still 
some  ten  days  which  I  spent  at  Addington.    Arthur  was 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  251 

already  back  at  Eton,  my  father  and  mother  and  Maggie 
soon  went  off  on  some  visit,  and  thus  it  happened  that 
Nellie  and  I  for  a  few  days  were  alone  there.  We  had 
breakfast  very  late,  with  a  sense  of  complete  uncontrol, 
we  rode  and  we  played  lawn-tennis  and  talked  in  the 
desultory  argumentative  manner  that  we  both  thoroughly 
enjoyed.  In  particular  we  played  at  "old  games,"  and 
Beth  used  to  join  us.  That  year  the  big  cedar  in  the  gar- 
den was  covered  with  little  immature  cones,  full  of  a  yel- 
low powder  like  sulphur,  and  we  collected  this  in  glass- 
topped  pill-boxes,  part  of  the  ancient  apparatus  of  the 
moth-collections,  shaking  the  sulphur-laden  cones  into 
them,  and  filling  each  full  to  the  brim.  There  was  no 
design  as  to  what  we  were  to  do  with  these:  there  was 
just  some  reversion  in  our  minds  to  childish  "treasures," 
like  the  spa  and  the  dead  hornet  in  the  aquarium.  It  was 
enough  to  fill  these  little  pill-boxes  with  the  cedar-pollen, 
and  screw  the  lids  on,  and  know  that  half  a  dozen  boxes 
were  charged  to  the  brim.  We  were  quite  aimless,  we 
saw  nobody  but  Beth,  and  were  wonderfully  content.  I 
did  a  little  reading  in  Overbeck's  Schriftquellen^  and 
Nellie  translated  the  German  part  of  it  to  me,  to  save 
time.  There  was  nothing  more  to  remember  of  those  days 
except  that  delicious  sense  of  leisure  and  love  and 
liberty:  we  did  nothing  except  what  we  wanted  to  do, 
and  what  we  seemed  to  want  was  to  be  ridiculous  chil- 
dren again.  Eventually,  after  some  four  or  five  days, 
came  the  afternoon  when  I  had  to  go  back  to  Cambridge; 
my  father  and  mother  were  coming  back  to  Addington 
that  day  or  the  next.  Nellie  and  I  parted,  greatly  regret- 
ting that  these  silly  days  were  done,  and  made  plans  for 
Christmas. 

A  week  or  so  afterwards,  I  got  a  letter  from  my  mother, 


252  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

saying  that  Nellie  had  a  diphtheritic  sore  throat.  Anxious 
news  came  after  that  for  a  few  days,  but  on  a  certain 
Sunday  I  had  tidings  that  she  was  going  on  well.  Early 
on  Monday  morning  I  got  a  telegram  telling  me  to  come 
home  at  once,  for  she  was  very  much  worse.  I  went  round 
to  Trinity  to  see  Hugh,  and  found  he  had  received  a 
similar  telegram.  There  was  a  train  to  London  half  an 
hour  later,  and  as  I  was  packing  a  bag  the  post  came 
in  with  reassuring  news.  But  that  had  been  written  the 
day  before :  the  telegram  was  of  later  date. 

She  had  died  that  morning,  facing  death  with  the  fear- 
less welcome  that  she  had  always  given  to  any  new  ex- 
perience. During  her  illness  she  had  not  been  able  to 
speak  at  all,  but  had  written  little  sentences  on  scraps  of 
paper;  after  the  nature  of  it  was  declared  she  had  been 
completely  isolated,  but  her  nurse  disinfected  these  notes 
and  sent  them  to  the  others.  The  first  was  a  joyful  little 
line  to  my  mother,  saying  that  as  she  had  to  be  in  bed, 
she  was  going  to  have  a  good  spell  of  writing  at  a  story 
she  was  engaged  on.  At  the  end,  the  last  note  but  one 
had  been  for  her  nurse ;  in  this  she  had  thanked  her  and 
asked,  "Is  there  anything  I  can  do?"  Her  nurse 
answered  her  when  she  read  it,  "Let  patience  do  her  per- 
fect work."  ...  So  that  was  off  Nellie's  mind.  And 
then  last  of  all  she  wrote  to  my  mother  who  was  by  her 
bed  and  she  traced  out,  "I  wonder  what  it  will  be  like. 
Give  them  all  my  love."  Then  my  mother  began  saying 
to  her,  "Jesu,  Lover  of  my  soul,"  and  while  she  was 
saying  it,  Nellie  died. 

That  afternoon,  we,  the  rest  of  us,  went  out  on  that 
still  sunny  October  day  and  strolled  through  the  woods 
together,  splitting  up  into  twos  and  threes  and  rejoining 
again.    My  mother  seemed  to  have  her  hand  in  Nellie's 


THE  CIRCLE  IS  BROKEN  253 

all  the  time,  telling  us,  who  had  come  too  late,  tran- 
quilly and  serenely,  how  the  days  had  gone,  and  how 
patient  she  had  been  and  how  cheerful.  We  recalled  all 
sorts  of  things  about  her,  with  smiles  and  with  laughter, 
and  there  was  no  sense  of  loss,  for  my  mother  brought  her 
amongst  us,  and  never  let  go  of  her.  Then,  back  in  the 
house  again,  there  were  other  arrangements  to  be  made: 
it  was  settled  that  Arthur,  Hugh  and  I  should  go  back  to 
Eton  and  Cambridge  as  soon  as  we  could,  but  after  the 
funeral  we  must  spend  a  week  of  quarantine  somewhere. 
How  Nellie  had  got  diphtheria  was  obscure,  and  it  was 
better  that  we  should  not  sleep  in  the  house,  or  run  a 
possible  risk  of  infection.  I  wanted  to  see  her,  but  my 
mother  said  that  what  I  wanted  to  see  was  not  Nellie  at 
all,  and  that  I  must  think  of  her  as  I  had  known  her. 
And  as  I  knew  her,  so  she  has  always  remained  for  me, 
collecting  the  cedar-sulphur,  or  laughing  with  open 
mouth,  or  grave  and  eager  with  sympathy.  The  glass- 
lidded  pill-boxes  were  on  a  ledge  of  a  bookcase,  where 
we  had  left  them  a  week  or  two  before.  My  mother  had 
seen  them,  and  thought  that  there  was  probably  some 
mystic  significance  about  them,  so  I  told  her  how  Nellie 
and  I  had  gathered  them,  and  she  said,  "What  treasures: 
bless  her!"  Golden  October  weather  it  was,  with  frosts 
at  night  and  windless  days,  and  the  chestnut  leaves  came 
peeling  off  the  trees  and  falling  in  a  heap  of  tawny  yellow 
below  them,  each  leaf  twirling  in  the  air  as  it  fell. 

She  was  buried  in  Addington  churchyard  and  next  her 
now  lies  Maggie,  and  on  her  other  side  my  mother. 

My  father,  all  the  time  of  Nellie's  illness,  had  been 
hard  at  work  on  the  final  revision  of  his  Lincoln  judg- 
ment: now  the  delivery  of  that  was  postponed  for  a  little, 


254  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

but  not  for  long.  Everyone  had  to  get  back  normally  and 
naturally  to  the  work  and  the  play  and  the  joy  and  sor- 
row of  life  again,  but  at  the  Christmas  holidays  it  was 
seen  how  huge  a  gap  had  come  in  the  circle  which  since 
Martin's  death,  twelve  years  before,  had  grown  up  to- 
gether, critical  and  devoted  and  wildly  alive.  No  one, 
when  all  were  so  intent  on  the  businesses  in  hand,  had  es- 
timated when  a  play,  for  instance,  must  be  written  and 
rehearsed  and  managed,  how  largely  it  was  Nellie's  en- 
thusiastic energy  that  carried  things  through.  So  there 
was  no  play  that  Christmas,  and  the  year  after  four  of 
us,  my  father  and  mother  and  Maggie  and  I,  were  in 
Algiers,  another  year  they  were  in  Florence,  and  another 
Maggie  and  I  were  in  Egypt,  and  so  that  particular  blaze 
of  young  activity  of  which  Christmas  holidays  had  been 
the  type  and  flower  came  to  an  end.  Besides  we  were  all 
getting  older,  and  there  was  no  Nellie;  with  her  death 
some  unrecapturable  magic  was  lost. 

Of  the  many  intimate  friendships  of  my  mother's  life 
none  was  closer  than  that  which  had  ripened  during  these 
years  at  Lambeth  with  Lucy  Tait,  the  daughter  of  the 
late  Archbishop.  She  had  constantly  been  with  us  in 
town  and  at  Addington,  and  now,  after  Nellie's  death, 
she  made  her  permanent  home  with  us.  Then,  when  the 
Lambeth  days  were  over  she  continued,  until  my  mother's 
death,  twenty-two  years  later^  to  devote  her  life  to  her. 


CHAPTER  XII 

AN   ARCHAEOLOGICAL    EXCURSION 

AT  Cambridge  the  study  of  archaeology  had  forcibly 
taken  possession  of  me  by  right  of  love,  and  at  last 
I  was  working  at  that  which  it  was  my  business  to  be 
occupied  in,  with  devotion  to  my  subject.  Roman  art, 
so  I  speedily  discovered,  was  an  utterly  hideous  and  de- 
based affair  in  itself,  and  the  only  things  of  beauty  that 
emerged  from  Rome  were  copies  of  Greek  originals,  and 
even  then  these  copies  were  probably  made  by  Greek 
workmen.  In  Roman  buildings  also  all  that  was  worth 
looking  at  was  stolen  from  the  Greeks,  and  often  marred 
in  the  stealing,  and  the  thick  mortar  between  their  roughly 
hewn  stones,  the  facing  of  them  with  a  dishonest  veneer 
of  marble,  their  abominable  tessellated  pavements,  the 
odious  wall  decorations  of  Pompeii  revolted  this  ardent 
Hellenist.  Now,  too,  for  the  first  time  since  I  came  up  to 
Cambridge,  I  came  under  an  inspired  and  inspiring 
teacher;  indeed,  there  were  two  such,  for  it  was  impossible 
not  to  burn  when  Dr.  Waldstein  in  the  Museum  of  Casts 
flung  himself  into  Hellenic  attitudes,  and  communicated 
his  volcanic  enthusiasm.  But  more  inspiring  yet  was 
Professor  Middleton :  he  gave  me  no  formal  lectures,  but 
encouraged  me  to  bring  my  books  to  his  room,  and  spend 
the  morning  there.  He  used  to  walk  about  in  a  thick 
dressing-gown  and  a  skull-cap,  looking  like  some  Oriental 
magician,  and  now  he  would  pull  an  intaglio  ring  off  his 

255 


256  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

finger  and  make  me  perceive  the  serene  and  matchless 
sobriety  of  an  early  gem  as  compared  with  the  more 
florid  design,  still  matchless  in  workmanship,  of  a  later 
century,  or  take  half  a  dozen  Greek  coins  out  of  his  waist- 
coat pocket  and  bid  me  decipher  the  thick  decorative  let- 
ters and  tell  him  where  they  came  from.  He  had  dozens 
of  notebooks  filled  with  sketches  of  Greek  mouldings  and 
cornices :  there  were  sections  of  the  columns  of  the  Parthe- 
non that  showed  how  the  drums  had  been  ground  round 
each  on  the  other,  till,  without  any  mess  of  mortar,  they 
adhered  so  closely  that  the  joint  was  scarcely  visible. 
There  were  cedar-wood  blocks  in  the  centres  of  them  with 
bronze  pins  round  which  they  revolved;  the  honesty  and 
precision  of  the  workmanship  could  never  be  discovered 
till  the  column  was  in  ruins.  But  there  was  the  very 
spirit  and  ardency  of  Greece ;  and  as  for  the  great  frieze 
of  horsemen  sculptured  on  the  walls  of  the  Parthenon  it 
was  so  placed  that  only  a  mere  glimpse  of  it  could  be  had 
by  those  who  walked  in  the  colonnade.  Yet  in  honour  of 
the  goddess  and  in  obedience  to  the  imperious  craving 
for  perfection,  it,  though  scarcely  to  be  seen,  must  be  of 
a  fineness  and  finish  unequalled  in  all  the  forums  of 
Rome.  Then  Middleton  would  take  a  fragment  of  Greek 
pottery  from  a  drawer,  or  a  white  lekythus  from  Eretria, 
and  show  me  the  mark  of  the  potter's  wheel,  and  how  the 
white  ground  was  laid  on  after  the  baking,  and  how  the 
artist  with  brush  delicate  and  unerring  had  drawn  the 
raised  arm  of  the  ephebus  who  laid  his  garland  on  the 
tomb.  There  were  photographs  also  from  the  Street  of 
Tombs;  in  one  there  was  standing  a  young  girl  with 
braided  hair.  She  it  was  who  was  dead,  and  the  mother 
stood  in  front  of  her  lifting  the  small  face  upwards  with 
a  hand  under  her  chin,  bending  to  kiss  her  for  the  last 


AN  ARCH/EOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     257 

time,  and  such  of  the  inscription  as  remained  ran 
XAIPEIIENG  .  .  .  The  rest  of  the  letters  was  gone, 
but  that  was  sufficient,  and  told  how  her  mother  gave 
the  final  greeting  of  Godspeed  and  of  farewell  to 
Penthesilea,  for  in  that  beautiful  tongue  "Hail"  I  and 
"Good-bye"  are  the  same  word  and  affectionately  wish 
prosperity,  whether  for  one  who  returns  to  the  home,  or 
goes  from  the  home  on  the  longest  journey  of  all.  And 
Professor  Middleton  made  me  realize  the  serenity  of  those 
good  wishes  for  Penthesilea:  there  was  a  wistfulness  on 
the  part  of  those  who  remained,  and  a  wonder  and  a  great 
hope,  and  God  knows  how  that  struck  home  to  me.  .  .  . 
Or  a  young  man  sat  languid  on  a  rock,  and  his  hunting 
spear  was  propped  behind  him,  and  beside  him  just  one 
companion,  weary  with  watching,  had  fallen  asleep. 
There  was  no  mother  there  to  send  him  on  his  way;  his 
friend  and  his  hunting-spear  were  his  comrades  on  earth, 
and  these  he  must  leave  behind  him,  when  to-day  he  fared 
out  on  his  new  adventure,  further  afield  than  ever  his 
huntings  had  taken  him.  .  .  .  And  thus  to  me,  the 
supreme  race  of  all  who  have  inhabited  this  earth  became 
real.  They  heard  the  voice  of  creation  as  none  other  has 
heard  it,  and  saw  as  none  other  has  seen.  They  realized 
in  dawn  and  in  nightfall  the  attainment  towards  which 
all  others  have  fruitlessly  striven,  showing  in  marble  the 
humanity  of  the  divine,  and  the  divinity  of  man;  they 
had  birthdays  for  their  gods,  and  for  their  dead,  who 
died  not,  they  had  the  imperishable  love  that  knows  not 
fear. 

Professor  Middleton  never  alluded  in  any  way  to  this 
archaeological  tripos  which  I  was  to  challenge  after  one 
year's  work.  All  the  morning,  three  times  a  week  or 
more,  I  used  to  sit  there  with  my  books  that  I  never  read. 


258  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

because  he,  in  his  dressing-gown,  produced,  one  after  the 
other,  little  bits  of  things  which  would  make  me  love  the 
Greeks  for  no  other  reason  than  for  the  artistic  joy  of 
their  works  and  days.  He  knew  of  course  that  there  was 
a  tripos  impending,  and  this  in  his  view  was  the  best  way 
of  preparing  for  it;  while  for  drier  stuff  he  gave  me  his 
notebooks  on  Vitruvius,  which  would,  with  his  little  ex- 
quisite sections  and  elevations,  explain  all  that  I  need 
know  about  the  bones  and  alphabet  of  architecture.  His 
whole  procedure,  as  I  saw  then,  and  his  whole  object 
was  to  make  me  want  to  know,  down  to  their  sandals  and 
their  salad-bowls  and  brooches,  all  that  was  to  be  learned 
of  the  brains  of  a  god-like  race.  Once,  so  I  remember,  a 
bitter  blizzard  white  with  snow  beat  against  the  windows, 
and  from  some  roof  near  a  slate  flew  off  and  crashed  in 
the  small  court  at  King's  where  the  mulberry  tree  grew. 
"That  was  Oreithyia,"  he  said,  sucking  on  his  pipe. 
"Boreas  loved  her,  and  blew  her  away.  Rude  Boreas,  you 
know.  You  should  read  up  the  myths.  Most  of  Greek 
sculpture  illustrates  myths." 

Since  the  days  when  I  was  fifteen,  since  Beesly  and  the 
Trojan  QueerCs  Revenge^  there  had  been  no  such  inspirer. 
But  Beesly  dealt  only  with  language,  while  under  Mid- 
dleton  the  drj^  bones  which  had  come  together,  not  only 
stood  up  "an  exceeding  great  army,"  but  went  about  their 
work,  and  returned  to  their  homes  of  an  evening,  and 
lived  and  loved.  Beesly  had  brought  me  to  the  portals 
of  the  house  of  the  people  who  made  Art,  and  knocked 
on  the  door  for  me.  But  Middleton  pushed  it  open,  and 
the  gold  standard  of  the  Greeks  that,  theoretically,  seven 
years  ago  I  knew  to  be  the  only  coinage,  was  now  weighed 
and  was  found  sufficient,  and  all  else  whatever  baser  stuff 
might  load  the  opposing  balance  was  found  wanting. 


AN  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     259 

It  was  at  some  time  during  that  year  that  J.  K.  Stephen, 
the  founder  of  the  T.A.F.,  returned  to  King's,  and  in- 
stantly for  me  all  the  lesser  lights  <u:  general  influence 
were  eclipsed.  In  presence  and  personality  alike  he  was 
one  of  those  who  without  effort  or  aim  impose  themselves 
on  their  circle.  Had  he  never  said  a  word,  the  very  fact 
of  his  being  in  the  room  must  have  produced  more  effect 
that  any  conversation  that  might  go  on  round  him.  He 
was  splendidly  handsome,  big  of  head,  impressive  and 
regular  of  feature,  and  enormously  massive  in  build;  slow 
moving  and  shambling  when  he  walked,  but  somehow 
monumental.  He  had  an  immense  fund  of  humour,  grim 
and  rather  savage  at  times,  at  others  of  such  froth  and 
frolic  as  appeared  in  the  two  volumes  of  verse  which 
he  published  during  the  next  year,  Lapsus  Calami^  and 
Quo  Musa  tcndis.  But  this  bubbling  lightness  was 
markedly  uncharacteristic  of  his  normal  self.  That  it 
was  there,  those  two  volumes  proved,  but  that  particular 
spring,  that  light-hearted  Puck-like  quality,  he  certainly 
reserved  for  his  verse,  which  to  those  who  knew  him  was 
in  no  way  the  flower  of  his  mind.  In  the  dedication  to 
Lapsus  Calami^  he  expresses  the  desire  that  the  reader 
should  recognize  his  debt  to  "C.S.C."  (Calverley  of  ¥ly 
Leaves),  he  hopes  that  some  one  will  think  that  "of  C.S.C. 
this  gentle  art  he  learned,"  and  undoubtedly  the  reader 
did  think  so,  for  it  was  certainly  C.S.C.  whose  method 
inspired  some  of  these  poems.  But  it  is  just  these  poems 
in  which  he  was  obviously  indebted  to  Calverley,  that 
are  least  worthy  and  characteristic  of  him.  Jim  Stephen 
made,  at  his  worst,  amusing  neat  little  rhymes  not  nearly 
so  good  as  Calverley's,  but,  at  his  best,  he  made  poems, 
such  as  "The  Old  School  List,"  of  which  Calverley  was 
quite  incapable.    Both  also  were  brilliant  parodists,  but 


260         DUR  family:  affairs 

here  J.K.S.  had  a  far  subtler  art  than  the  man  with  whom 
he  hoped  his  readers  would  compare  him.  Calverley's 
famous  parody  o[  ^iobert  Browning,  "The  Cock  and  the 
Bull,"  does  not  touch  in  point  of  rapier-work  J.K.S.'s 
poem  "Sincere  Flattery  to  R.B."  The  one  does  no  more 
than  seize  on  ridiculous  phrases  in  Browning,  and  go  a 
shade  further  in  absurdity:  the  other  ("Birthdays") 
parodies  the  very  essence  of  the  more  obscure  lyrics :  you 
cannot  read  it,  however  often  you  have  done  so,  without 
the  hope  that  you  may  this  time  or  the  next  find  out  what 
it  means.  He  was  the  inventor,  too,  of  a  peculiarly 
pleasing  artifice  with  regard  to  parody,  for  he  put  into 
Wordsworth's  mouth,  for  instance,  in  pure  Words- 
worthian  phrase,  the  exact  opposite  of  Wordsworth's 
teaching,  and  produced  a  lament  over  the  want  of  loco- 
motive power  in  the  Lake  district.  The  effect  is  inimit- 
able :  the  poet  longs  to  see  in  those  happy  days  when  Hel- 
vellyn's  base  is  tunnelled,  and  its  peak  grimy 

The  dusky  grove  of  iron  rails 
Which  leads  to  Euston  Square, 

and  in  lines  that  almost  must  have  been  written  by 
Wordsworth  exclaims: 

I  want  to  hear  the  porters  cry, 
"Change  here  for  Ennerdale !" 

And  I  must  be  forgiven,  since  so  few  know  the  poem,  for 
quoting  the  postscript  to  his  parody  of  Browning,  suffi- 
cient surely  to  make  the  poet,  for  whom  Jim  Stephen  had 
an  immense  reverence,  turn  in  his  grave  in  order  to  laugh 
more  easily.    As  follows: 


AN  ARCHiEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     2G1 

P.S. 

There's  a  Me  Society  down  at  Cambridge 
Where  my  works,  cum  notis  variorum 
Are  talked  about:  well,  I  require  the  same  bridge 
As  Euclid  took  toll  at  as  Asinorum. 

And  as  they  have  got  through  several  ditties 
I  thought  were  as  stiff  as  a  brick-built  wall 
I've  composed  the  above,  and  a  stiff  one  it  is, 
A  bridge  to  stop  asses  at,  once  for  all. 

If  the  art  of  parody  can  go  further,  I  do  not  know  who 
has  conducted  it  there.  The  kindly  ghost  of  Robert 
Browning  might  perhaps  shrug  his  shoulders  at  "The 
Cock  and  the  Bull,"  and  say,  "Very  amusing" :  but  read-' 
ing  Jim  Stephen's  R.B.  he  must  surely  have  winced  and 
frowned  first,  and  thereafter  broken  into  a  roar  of  his 
most  genial  laughter. 

Often  (when  not  indebted  to  C.S.C.)  Jim  Stephen's 
most  apt  and  biting  parodies  would  be  written  or  spouted 
extempore:  I  remember  for  instance  someone  reading  a 
rather  lamentable  verse  from  F.  W.  Myers  in  which  he 
delicately  alludes  to  the  godly  procreation  of  children 
in  the  following  lines : 

Lo!  when  a  man  magnanimous  and  tender, 
Lo !  when  a  woman  desperate  and  true, 
Make  the  irrevocable  sweet  surrender, 
Show  to  each  other  what  the  Lord  can  do. 

upon  which  Jim  Stephen  without  a  moment's  pause  ex- 
claimed : 

Lo!  when  a  man  cbscene  and  superstitious, 
Lo!  when  a  woman  brainless  and  absurd. 
Strive  to  idealize  the  meretricious, 
Love  one  another  like  a  beast  or  bircL 


262  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

This  could  not  be  included  in  Lapsus  Calami^  nor  un- 
fortunately would  he  include  one  of  his  most  ingenious 
extravagances,  and  I  cannot  find  that  it  has  ever  been 
published.  The  subject  matter  was  that  a  burglar  "des- 
perate and  true"  awoke  in  the  night  and  found  an  angel 
standing  in  his  room,  who  asked  him  whether,  being  what 
he  was,  he  would  sooner  go  to  heaven  or  hell,  the  choice 
being  entirely  his.  His  admirably  logical  conclusion  was 
as  follows : 

The  burning  at  first  no  doubt  would  be  worst, 
But  custom  that  anguish  would  soften ; 
But  those  who  are  bored  by  praising  the  Lord, 
Would  be  more  so  by  praising  him  often. 

He  chooses  accordingly. 

All  that  year  Jim  remained  in  residence  at  Cambridge ; 
during  one  vacation  he  stayed  with  us  at  Addington,  dur- 
ing another  I  went  over  to  his  Irish  home,  where,  one 
evening  after  an  argument  about  Kipling,  he  took  up  his 
bedroom  candle  saying,  "Well,  I  wish  he  would  stop 
kipling.  Good  night."  In  ten  minutes  he  came  back, 
"I've  written  a  poem  about  it,"  he  said,  and  proceeded  to 
read  the  two  immortal  stanzas  which  end, 

When  the  Rudyards  cease  from  kipling. 
And  the  Haggards  ride  no  more. 

Close  friends  though  we  were,  I  was  always  conscious  of 
a  side  of  him  that  was  formidable,  of  the  possibility  of  a 
sudden  blaze  of  anger  flaring  up  though  quickly  ex- 
tinguished again:  there  was,  too,  always  present  the 
knowledge  of  that  "dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud"  in  the 
skirts  of  which  he  had  been  before,  and  into  the  heart*of 


AN  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     263 

which  it  was  inscrutably  decreed  that  he  must  go.  There 
came  a  dark  December  morning;  that  time  the  breakdown 
was  final,  and  he  lived  not  many  weeks. 

Once  again  I  made  a  triumphant  tripos  in  the  matter  of 
archaeology,  was  given  an  open  scholarship  at  King's,  and 
immediately  afterwards  applied  for  one  of  those  grants 
that  seemed  to  hang  like  ripe  plums  on  the  delightful 
tree  of  knowledge.  Hitherto  those  branches  had  waved 
high  above  my  head,  but  now  they  graciously  swept  down- 
wards and  I  plucked  at  the  first  plum  I  saw,  and  applied 
for  a  small  grant  to  excavate  in  the  town-walls  at 
Chester.  There  was  reason  to  suppose  that  quantities  of 
the  Roman  tombstones  of  the  legionaries  that  had  been 
stationed  there,  had  been  utilized  in  the  building  of  the 
town-wall,  and  though  there  were  only  Roman  remains 
to  be  discovered  (would  that  they  had  been  Greek!)  the 
search  for  them  would  be  a  very  pleasant  pursuit  for  the 
autumn,  and  might  yield  material  for  a  fellowship-dis- 
sertation. To  my  intense  surprise  some  grant — from  the 
Wiirtz  Fund,  I  think — was  given  me,  for  the  purpose  of 
discovering,  if  possible,  new  facts  about  the  distribution 
of  Roman  legions  in  Britain. 

The  family  went  out  to  Pontresina  that  August,  and  I 
with  them  for  a  week  or  two  before  the  work  at  Chester 
began.  There  I  had  a  most  horrible  experience  with 
Hugh  on  the  Piz  Palu,  one  of  the  peaks  of  the  Bernina. 
Our  plan  was  to  make  a  "col"  of  it,  that  is  to  ascend  it 
on  one  side,  pass  over  the  top,  and  descend  on  another. 
We  tramped  and  perspired  up  southern  slopes  in  deep 
snow  on  the  ascent,  struck  an  arete  which  led  to  the  top, 
made  the  summit,  and  began  to  descend  by  another  route. 
The  way  lay  over  a  long  ridge  swept  by  the  most  biting 


264  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

north  wind,  from  which  on  the  ascent  the  mountain  had 
screened  us,  and  never  have  I  encountered  so  wicked  a 
blast.  The  loose  snow  whirled  up  from  the  rocks  was 
driven  against  us  as  if  it  was  torrents  of  icy  rain,  pierc- 
ing and  penetrating.  Once  as  we  halted,  I  noticed  that 
Hugh  shut  his  eyes,  and  seemed  sleepy,  but  he  said  that 
he  was  all  right  and  on  we  went.  He  was  on  the  rope 
just  in  front  of  me  behind  the  leading  guide,  and  sud- 
denly, without  stumbling,  he  fell  down  in  a  heap.  He 
was  just  conscious  when  we  picked  him  up  and  said,  "I'm 
only  rather  sleepy;  let  me  go  to  sleep  .  .  ."  and  then 
collapsed  again. 

He  was  alive  and  little  more.  Raw  brandy,  of  which 
we  had  about  half  a  pint,  stimulated  him  for  a  moment, 
and  soon,  after  another  and  another  dose,  our  brandy  was 
gone.  There  was  no  question  of  the  inadvisability  of  giv- 
ing him  spirits,  in  order  to  warm  him,  which  is  one  of  the 
most  fatal  errors  when  a  climber  is  suffering  from  mere 
cold :  there  was  just  the  hope  of  keeping  him  alive  by  any 
stimulant.  It  was  not  possible  to  go  back  over  the  sum- 
mit, and  so  to  get  into  more  sheltered  conditions  again; 
the  best  chance,  and  that  a  poor  one,  was  to  convey  him 
down  somehow  along  the  rest  of  this  bitter  ridge,  till 
we  could  find  shelter  from  the  wind.  Very  soon  he  be- 
came completely  unconscious,  he  could  move  no  more  at 
all,  and  the  guide  and  the  porter  whom  we  had  with  us 
simply  carried  him  along  the  rest  of  the  ridge.  The  rope 
was  altogether  a  hindrance,  so  we  took  it  off,  and  pro- 
ceeded in  two  separate  parties.  The  guides  carried  Hugh 
between  them,  and  I  followed. 

I  had  no  idea  after  we  had  made  this  arrangement  if 
Hugh  was  alive  or  not ;  often  I  had  to  wait  till  they  got 
round  some  awkward  corner,  and  then  make  my  way  after 


AN  ARCH^OLOGICAL  EXCURSION     205 

them.  Places  that  would  have  been  easily  traversed  by 
a  roped  party,  took  on  a  totally  different  aspect,  when  two 
men  unroped  were  carrying  another,  and  when  the  fourth 
of  the  party  had  to  traverse  them  alone.  What  chiefly 
occupied  my  benumbed  mind  was  the  sort  of  telegram 
that  would  be  sent  to  my  father  when  we  got  down  to  the 
foot  of  the  glacier  below,  where  there  was  communication 
with  Pontresina.  Should  I  be  sending  a  telegram  that 
Hugh  was  dead,  or  should  I  have  slipped,  and  thus  be 
incapable  of  sending  a  telegram  at  all,  or  would  nobody 
come  back"?  .  .  .  For  some  hour  or  so  this  procession 
went  on  its  way:  after  I  had  waited  for  the  trio  to  get 
round  some  rock  or  obstruction  on  the  ridge,  I  followed, 
and  caught  sight  of  them  again  a  dozen  yards  further 
down.  Whether  they  were  carrying  a  corpse  or  not  I 
had  no  idea. 

Gradually  we  came  to  the  end  of  this  ridge.  I  had 
waited  for  them  to  scramble  over  a  difficult  passage,  and 
then  they  disappeared  round  a  corner.  One  of  the  guides 
had  loosened  a  rock,  and  when  I  tried  to  step  on  it,  it 
gave  way  altogether  and  rattled  down  the  almost  precipi- 
tous slope  to  the  side.  I  had  recovered  on  to  my  original 
standing-ground,  but  with  that  rock  gone,  and  being 
alone  and  unroped,  it  took  me  some  couple  of  minutes, 
I  suppose,  to  find  a  reliable  foothold.  When  that  was 
done,  a  couple  of  steps  more  brought  me,  as  it  had  brought 
them,  completely  out  of  the  wind,  and  on  to  a  broiling 
southern  slope.  Fifty  feet  below  me  there  came  another 
corner,  which  they  had  already  passed,  and  I  could  see 
nothing  further.  I  went  round  that  corner,  and  found  the 
two  guides  roaring  with  laughter  and  Hugh  quite  drunk. 
He  was  making  some  sort  of  ineffectual  attempt  to  sit 
on  the  point  of  his  ice-axe.    He  was  not  dead  at  all :  he 


266  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

was  only  drunk.  The  moment,  apparently,  that  they  had 
got  out  of  that  icy  blast,  his  heart-action  must  have  re- 
asserted itself,  and  there  was  a  half-pint  of  raw  brandy 
poured  into  an  empty  stomach  to  render  accounts.  With 
thick  and  stumbling  speech,  he  staggered  along,  assur- 
ing us  that  he  had  only  been  rather  sleepy.  .  .  .  And  so 
he  had,  and  I  emptied  the  fine  snow  that  had  been  driven 
in  about  my  knees  through  my  knickerbockers,  and  had 
no  need  to  send  any  telegrams. 

Except  for  that  adventure,  which  I  would  gladly  have 
done  without,  Pontresina  was  an  uneventful  place,  rather 
picnicky  and  wearisome.  There  was  a  friend  of  my  sister 
Maggie  there  under  the  sentence  of  the  white  death: 
there  was  an  elderly  bishop  who  attached  himself  some- 
what to  our  party :  there  was  Miss  Margot  Tennant  whom 
then  I  met  for  the  first  time;  and  after  a  rather  dull  fort- 
night, I  turned  back  to  England  to  embrace  the  career,  at 
Chester,  of  a  serious  archaeologist. 

Now  there  was  no  particular  reason  why  the  Corpo- 
ration of  Chester  should  allow  a  young  gentleman  from 
Cambridge  University  to  pull  the  city  walls  about,  in  the 
hope  of  extracting  therefrom  Roman  tombstones,  even 
though  he  was  quite  willing  that  these  monuments,  if 
discovered,  should  be  presented  to  the  local  museum.  So 
with  a  view  to  securing  a  warmer  welcome,  I  had  got 
my  father  to  write  to  the  Duke  of  Westminster  at  Eaton, 
and  this  was  a  gloriously  successful  move.  I  went  over 
to  see  him,  explained  the  plan,  and  got  his  support.  He 
in  turn  wrote  to  the  Mayor  urging  the  claims  of  archse- 
ology  on  an  enlightened  town,  and  gave  me  £50  to  aug- 
ment the  grant  from  the  Wiirtz  fund.  The  technical  part 
of  the  work,  the  underpinning  of  the  wall,  the  subsequent 


AN  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     267 

building  of  it  up  again  in  case  we  extracted  Roman  tomb- 
stones from  it  was  entrusted  to  the  city  surveyor:  local 
subscriptions  came  in,  and  tombstones  of  considerable  im- 
portance came  out,  for  we  found  that  a  legion,  ''Legio 
Decima  Valeria  ViclHx"  (The  victorious  Valerian), 
whose  presence  in  England  was  hitherto  unknown,  had 
been  stationed  at  Chester.  Professor  Mommsen,  the  his- 
torian, must  be  informed  about  that,  and  the  copies  of 
these  tombstones  must  be  sent  him,  and  these  produced  a 
letter  of  congratulation  and  acknowledgment  from  the 
great  man.  I  skipped  with  joy  over  that,  for  was  not 
this  an  apotheosis  for  the  family  dunce,  that  Professor 
Mommsen  should  applaud  his  work*?  And  again  I 
skipped  when  one  of  the  famous  post-cards  came  from 
Hawarden,  asking  me  to  come  over  and  tell  Mr.  Glad- 
stone about  these  finds.  The  sense  of  diplomacy  spiced 
that  adventure,  for  profoundly  ignorant  though  I  was 
about  politics,  I  had  just  the  prudence  to  be  aware  that 
Eaton  and  Hawarden  must  not  be  put,  so  to  speak,  into 
one  pocket,  since  Mr.  Gladstone  with  his  policies  of 
Home  Rule  for  Ireland  and  the  Disestablishment  of  the 
Welsh  Church  had  digged  a  gulf  of  liquid  fire  between 
himself  and  the  Duke.  There  must  be  nothing  said  that 
could  tend  to  stoke  that,  and  strict  was  the  guard  that 
I  set  on  my  lips. 

All  are  agreed  on  the  sense  of  the  terrific  latent  energy 
with  which  that  quiet  country-house  was  stored :  there  was 
high  tension  in  its  tranquillity.  You  felt  that  if  you 
touched  anything  a  great  electric  spark  might  flare  with 
a  cracking  explosion  towards  your  extended  finger.  .  .  . 
I  got  there  during  the  morning  and  was  at  once  taken  to 
see  Mr.  Gladstone.    He  was  in  his  study,  sitting  at  his 


268  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

"political"  table:  that  other  table  was  the  table  where 
he  worked  at  Homer,  so  he  presently  explained  to  me,  sug- 
gesting though  not  actually  stating  the  image  which  flew 
into  my  mind,  of  his  boiling  over,  so  to  speak,  at  the 
political  table,  that  furnace  of  fierce  contention  and 
white-hot  enthusiasm,  and  of  his  putting  himself  to  cool 
off  from  controversy  by  the  Ionian  Sea.  He  instantly 
plunged  into  the  subject  of  Roman  legionaries  in  Britain 
as  if  nothing  else  really  mattered  or  ever  had  mattered  to 
him,  and  pored  over  the  copies  of  a  few  inscriptions  I  had 
brought  him.  But  he  wanted  more  lively  evidence  than 
a  mere  copy. 

"I  should  like  to  see  the  squeezes  of  these,"  he  said. 
"Do  you  know  the  only  proper  way  to  make  squeezes'? 
You  take  your  sheet  of  blotting-paper,  and  after  you  have 
washed  the  stone,  you  lay  it  on,  pressing  the  paper  into 
the  letters  of  the  inscription.  Then  sprinkle  it  with 
water,  but  by  no  means  wet  your  paper  before  you  have 
laid  it  on  the  stone,  because  it  is  apt  to  tear  if  you  do 
that.  Then  take  a  clothes  brush — not  too  stiff  ^  one — 
and  tap  the  surface  over  and  over  again  with  the  bristles. 
By  degrees  you  will  get  the  paper  to  mould  itself  into  all 
the  letters  of  the  inscription,  and  where  there  are  letters 
apparently  quite  perished,  it  will  often  show  you  some 
faint  stroke  from  which  you  can  conjecture  what  the 
missing  letter  has  been,  though  it  is  invisible  to  the  eye. 
And  let  your  blotting  paper  get  dry  before  you  remove 
it.  Otherwise  again  you  may  tear  it.  Yes,  we  are  coming 
to  lunch:  we  know,"  he  said  to  Mrs.  Gladstone,  who 
came  in  for  the  second  time  to  say  it  was  ready. 

I  do  not  of  course  pretend  to  reproduce  the  precise 
wording  of  this  little  dissertation  on  blotting-paper- 
squeezes,  but  there  or  thereabouts  was  the  substance  of  it, 


E.    F.   BEN  SOX,    .tT.    22 


[Page  269 


AN  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     271 

full  of  detail,  full  of  fire  and  gesticulation,  as  if  he  him- 
self had  invented  the  science  of  squeezes,  and  had  done 
nothing  all  his  life  but  make  them. 

After  lunch  he  said  he  would  drive  me  to  St.  Deinlol's, 
the  library,  chiefly  theological  and  philosophical,  that  he 
was  arranging,  largely  with  his  own  hands,  from  his  vast 
accumulation  of  books,  for  the  benefit  of  the  district,  and 
in  especial,  for  that  of  clerical  students  whose  Church 
he  had  vainly  attempted  to  disestablish.  Soon  after 
lunch  it  was  announced  that  the  carriage  was  round,  and 
he  went  to  the  door.  I  had  supposed  that  there  would 
be  some  brougham  or  whatnot  in  charge  of  a  coachman; 
instead  there  was  a  pony  carriage  for  two,  with  a  groom 
holding  tight  on  to  the  pony's  head.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
already  very  dim-sighted,  peered  at  the  pony,  and  said 
to  me,  "Wait  a  minute :  that  pony's  a  beast,"  and  hurried 
back  into  the  house  reappearing  again  with  a  formidable 
whip.  Then  I  became  aware  that  he  and  I  were  going 
alone,  and  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  armed  with  this  whip 
in  case  the  pony  was  "beastly,"  was  intending  to  drive, 
for  he  took  up  the  reins,  and,  as  soon  as  I  was  in,  said 
to  the  groom,  "Let  go,  Charles,"  and  whacked  the  pony 
over  the  rump  to  teach  him  that  there  was  his  master 
sitting  inside.  Under  this  charioteer,  blind  and  aged  and 
completely  intrepid,  we  cantered  away  to  St.  Deiniol's, 
Mr.  Gladstone  pointing  at  objects  of  interest  with  his 
whip,  and  reminding  the  pony  that  he  would  catch  it, 
if  he  misbehaved.  From  there,  I  think  he  drove  me  to 
the  station  and  returned  alone.  I  duly  sent  him  squeezes 
prepared  in  the  manner  he  had  prescribed,  and  received 
a  series  of  post-cards  suggesting  the  probable  readings  of 
erased  letters,  and  when  next  I  went  to  Hawarden  that 
autumn,  there  were  passages  he  had  turned  up  in  the 


272  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

'''Corpus  Inscriptionum  Latinarum^'  which  bore  on  this 
tombstone  and  on  that,  discharged  at  me  as  if  from  a 
volcano.  .  .  . 

Six  weeks*  exploration  was  enough  to  exhaust  my 
funds,  and  I  carried  my  squeezes  and  my  sketches  back 
to  Cambridge,  there  to  put  the  results  into  shape.  .  .  . 
And  there  I  found,  and  re-read  with  a  suddenly  re-kindled 
interest  those  pages  of  blue  foolscap  on  the  first  of  which 
was  the  heading  "Dodo."  I  had  written  them  chiefly  for 
my  own  amusement,  but  now,  rightly  or  wrongly,  I  had 
the  conviction  that  they  might  amuse  others  as  well.  But 
I  really  had  no  idea,  till  I  took  them  out  again,  what  they 
were  like;  now  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  people  in  them 
were  something  like  real  people,  and  that  the  whole  in 
point  of  agitating  fact  was  something  like  a  real  book, 
that  might  be  printed  and  bound.  .  .  .  But  I  instantly 
wanted  another  and  if  possible  a  story-teller's  opinion 
about  it,  and  sent  it  off  to  my  mother,  asking  her  to  read 
it  first,  and  if  it  seemed  to  her  to  provide  any  species  of 
entertainment,  to  think  whether  she  could  not  manage  to 
induce  Mrs.  Harrison  (Lucas  Malet)  or  Henry  James,  to 
cast  a  professional  eye  over  it.  She  managed  this  with 
such  success,  that  a  few  days  afterwards  she  wrote  to 
me  to  say  that  Henry  James  had  consented  to  read  it,  and 
give  his  frank  opinion.  The  packet  she  had  already,  on 
his  consent,  despatched  to  him. 

Now  this  MSS.  which  thus  had  reached  the  kindest 
man  in  the  world,  was  written  in  a  furious  hurry  and 
covered  with  erasures,  that  exploded  into  illegible  inter- 
polations, and  was  indited  in  such  a  hand  as  we  employ 
on  a  note  that  has  to  be  dashed  off  when  it  is  time  already 
to  go  to  the  station.  This  was  genially  hinted  at  when 
late  in  November  the  recipient  announced  to  me  his  judg- 


AN  ARCIIiEOLOGICAL  EXCURSION     273 

ment  in  the  matter;  for  he  prefaced  his  criticism  with 
an  apology  for  having  kept  it  so  long,  and  allowed  that, 
in  consentng  to  read  and  criticize,  he  had  "rather  over- 
estimated the  attention  I  should  be  able  to  give  to  a 
production  in  manuscript  of  such  substantial  length.  We 
live  in  such  a  world  of  type-coj3y  to-day  that  I  had  taken 
for  granted  your  story  would  come  to  me  in  that 
form.  .  .  ." 

I  should  like  to  call  the  attention  of  Mr.  Max  Beer- 
bohm,  our  national  caricaturist  and  parodist,  to  this 
unique  situation.  Henry  James  at  that  time  had  lately 
evolved  the  style  and  the  method  which  makes  a  deeper 
gulf  between  his  earlier  books  and  his  later  than  exists  be- 
tween different  periods  of  the  work  of  any  other  artist. 
Nearest  perhaps  in  this  extent  and  depth  of  gulf  comes 
the  case  of  the  painter  Turner,  but  the  most  sober  and 
quiet  example  of  his  early  period  is  not  so  far  sundered 
from  the  most  riotous  of  Venetian  sunrises,  as  is,  let  us 
say,  "Roderick  Hudson"  from  "The  Ivory  Tower."  Just 
about  now  Henry  James  had  realized,  as  he  told  my 
mother,  that  all  his  previous  work  was  "subaqueous": 
now,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  got  his  head  above 
water,  whereas  to  those  who  adored  his  earlier  work  he 
appeared  to  have  taken  a  header  into  some  bottomless 
depth,  where  no  plummet  could  penetrate.  At  this  pre- 
cise moment  when  he  had  vowed  himself  to  psychological 
analysis  so  meticulous  and  intricate  that  such  action  as 
he  henceforth  permitted  himself  in  his  novels  had  to  be 
sifted  and  searched  for  and  inferred  from  the  motives 
that  prompted  it,  he  found  himself  committed  to  read 
a  long  and  crabbed  MS.,  roughly  and  voluptuously 
squirted  on  to  the  paper.  With  what  sense  of  outrage  as 
he  deciphered  it  sentence  by  sentence  must  he  have  found 


274  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

himself  confronted  by  the  high-spirited  but  hare-brained 
harangues  of  my  unfortunate  heroine  and  her  wordy 
friends!  Page  after  page  he  must  have  turned,  only  to 
discover  more  elementary  adventures,  more  nugatory  and 
nonsensical  dialogues.  At  the  stage  at  which  my  story 
then  was,  I  must  tell  the  reader  that  the  heroine  was  far 
more  extravagant  than  she  subsequently  became:  She 
was  much  pruned  and  tamed  before  she  made  her  printed 
appearance.  The  greater  part  of  her  censored  escapades 
have  faded  from  my  mind,  but  I  still  remember  some 
occasion  soon  after  her  baby's  death  when  she  was  dis- 
covered, I  think  by  Jack,'  doing  a  step-dance  with  her 
footman.  It  must  all  have  seemed  to  Henry  James  the 
very  flower  and  felicity  of  hopeless,  irredeemable  fiction 
and  still  he  persevered.  ...  Or  did  he  persevere?  He 
wrote  me  anyhow  the  most  careful  and  kindly  of  letters, 
following  it  by  yet  another,  delicately  and  delightfully 
forbearing  to  quench  the  smoking  flax. 

"I  am  such  a  fanatic  myself,"  he  writes  in  the  earlier 
of  these,  "on  the  subject  of  form,  style,  the  evidence  of 
intention  and  meditation,  of  chiselling  and  hammering 
out  in  literary  things  that  I  am  afraid  I  am  rather  a  cold- 
blooded judge,  rather  likely  to  be  offensive  to  a  young 
story-teller  on  the  question  of  quality.  I'm  not  sure  that 
yours  strikes  me  as  quite  so  ferociously  literary  as  my 
ideal.  .  .  .  Only  remember  that  a  story  is,  essentially  a 
form,  and  that  if  it  fails  of  that,  it  fails  of  its  mission. 
.  .  .  For  the  rest,  make  yourself  a  style.  It  is  by  style  we 
are  saved." 

In  case  the  reader  has  given  a  glance  to  Dodo,  can  he 
imagine  a  more  wisely  expressed  opinion,  that  opinion,  in 
fact,  being  no  opinion  at  all"?  Never  by  any  possibility 
could  that  MS.  have  seemed  to  him  worth  the  paper  it 


AN  ARCH^OLOGICAL  EXCURSION     275 

was  written  on,  or  two  minutes  of  his  own  time.  With 
what  a  sigh  of  relief  he  must  have  bundled  it  into  its 
wrapper  again  I 

I  suppose  I  was  incorrigible  on  this  question  of  scrib- 
bling, for  I  was  not  in  the  least  discouraged.  But  for  the 
time  the  further  adventures  of  the  book  were  cut  short 
by  its  author's  Odysseys,  for  directly  after  Christmas  my 
father  and  mother,  Maggie,  Lucy  Tait  and  I  started  for 
Algiers,  through  which  we  were  to  journey  together  as 
far  as  Tunis.  After  that  I  was  going  on  to  Athens  to 
spend  the  spring  there  studying  at  the  British  School  of 
Archaeology,  and  it  was  with  a  light  heart  that  I  clapped 
Dodo,  after  this  austere  outing,  back  into  a  drawer  again 
to  wait  till  I  could  attend  to  her. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


Athens  and  dodo 


A  CURIOUS  incident  marked  that  Algerian  tour. 
Before  going,  my  father  told  Queen  Victoria  of  his 
intention,  and  she  had  at  first  been  against  his  travelling 
so  far  afield,  putting  it  to  him  that  if  his  presence  in 
England  was  urgently  and  instantly  required,  there  might 
be  some  difficulty  about  his  getting  back  in  time. 
Whether  she  had  in  her  mind  the  possibility  of  her  own 
sudden  death  she  did  not  explain.  But  presently  she 
seemed  to  think  that  her  reluctance  that  he  should  be 
so  remote  from  England  was  unfounded :  she  changed  her 
mind  and  wished  him  an  interesting  and  delightful  jour- 
ney. So  from  Algiers  we  went  slowly  eastwards  visit- 
ing Constantine,  Tebessa,  Timeghad  and  Fort  National 
on  the  way,  our  most  remote  point  from  Englai  -via 
Tunis  on  the  one  side  or  (retracing  our  steps)  Algiers 
on  the  other — ^being  Biskra.  We  got  there  late  one  after- 
noon, and  waiting  for  my  father  was  a  telegram  from  the 
Lord  Chamberlain,  announcing  the  death  of  Prince  Ed- 
ward, Duke  of  Clarence,  from  influenza,  and  giving  the 
date  for  the  funeral.  My  father  and  I  with  guides  and 
Bradshaws  vainly  attempted  to  find  a  route  by  which  he 
could  get  back  to  England  in  time,  but  such  route  did 
not  exist.  Had  this  news  come  that  morning  he  could 
have  got  back,  so  also  could  he,  if  the  funeral  had  been 
arranged  for  the  day  after  that  for  which  it  was  fixed: 

276 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  277 

but  just  here^  at  Biskra,  and  nowhere  else  throughout  the 
journey  was  my  father  unable  to  return  in  time.  It 
would  perhaps  be  going  too  far  to  say  that  the  Queen 
had  anything  in  her  mind  definite  enough  to  call  a  pre- 
monition; but  the  event  happening  just  then  was  at  least 
a  most  curious  coincidence,  ...  A  few  hours  afterwards 
a  second  telegram  arrived,  from  the  Prince  of  Wales  who, 
with  great  thoughtfulness,  begged  him  not  to  interrupt 
his  tour. 

My  father  was  thus  able  to  realize  one  of  the  dearest 
dreams  of  his  life,  namely,  to  see  with  his  mortal  eyes 
the  Carthage  which  he  knew  so  intimately  in  connection 
with  his  lifelong  study  of  Cyprian.  His  book  on  Cyprian 
which  had  occupied  his  leisure  for  some  thirty  years  was 
now  approaching  completion,  and  long  had  he  yearned 
to  behold  the  ruined  site  where  Cyprian  had  worked  as 
bishop,  to  wander  with  his  own  feet  over  the  shores  and 
hills,  which,  all  these  years,  had  been  so  familiar  to 
him;  and  that  visit  to  Carthage  had  for  him  the  sacred- 
ness  of  some  pilgrimage  for  which  his  heart  hungered. 
His  own  enthusiasm  was  so  keen  that  I  feel  sure  that  he 
had  no  idea  that  his  Mecca  could  be  less  to  us  than  to 
him,  and  I  have  the  vision  of  him  kneeling  on  the  site 
of  some  early  Christian  church,  with  his  face  all  aglow 
with  the  long-deferred  consummation.  Just  as  his  ap- 
preciation of  a  picture  was  mainly  due  to  the  nature  of 
its  subject,  just  as  his  pleasure  in  music  was  derived  from 
the  words  which  were  sung  to  it,  so  now,  as  his  diary 
records,  he  saw  enchanting  loveliness  In  that  bare  and 
featureless  hill  where  Carthage  once  stood,  for  Cyprian's 
sake,  and  wondered  at  the  want  of  perception  which 
caused  other  travellers  to  find  nothing  admirable  in  that 
bleak  place.     For  once  the  classical  associations  of  Car- 


278  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

thage,  the  Punic  Wars,  the  subsequent  Roman  occupation 
had  no  lure  for  him.  Cyprian,  Bishop  of  Carthage,  was 
the  full  moon  among  the  lesser  lights  of  the  firmament. 

At  Tunis  I  left  the  rest  of  them,  going  on  my  own 
special  pilgrimage,  and  via  Malta  and  Brindisi  I  came 
to  the  city  already  known  to  me  by  map  and  picture,  and 
hallowed  by  some  kind  of  predestined  love.  And  just 
as  my  father  was  enchanted  with  that  ugly  little  hill  of 
Carthage  because  Cyprian  had  dwelt  there,  how  was  I 
not  transported  when  above  mean  streets  and  miry  ways 
I  saw  the  sparkle  of  that  marble  crown  of  temples  on  the 
Acropolis?  For  indeed,  from  the  time  that  Beesly  had 
read  us  his  Trojan  QueerU s  Revenge^  some  idea,  some 
day-dream  of  Athens  had  been  distilled,  drop  by  drop, 
into  my  blood.  Whatever  was  lovely,  whatever  must  be 
estimated  and  esteemed  I  always  laid  alongside  some 
Greek  standard.  Not  alone  were  things  directly  Greek, 
like  the  chorus  of  the  CEdipus  in  Colonos^  the  chorus  in 
Swinburne's  Atalanta^  the  teachings  of  Middleton,  the 
holy  dead  in  the  Street  of  Tombs  tested  by  the  Hellenic 
touchstone,  but  whatever  moved  my  heart,  the  vision  of 
Mary  Anderson  in  the  Winter's  Tale,  the  joy  of  athletics, 
the  austere  crests  of  mountains,  the  forest  of  Savernake, 
the  Passion-music  of  Bach,  had  been  instinctively  sub- 
jected to  the  same  criterion. 

The  material  standard  and  symbol  of  that,  by  this 
subtle  subconscious  distillation,  had  always  been  the 
Acropolis,  and  on  this  crystalline  January  afternoon,  it 
was  mine  to  hurry  along  a  tawdry  Parisian  boulevard,  set 
with  pepper  trees,  to  see  on  one  side  the  columns  of  the 
temple  of  Zeus,  and  on  the  other  the  circular  Shrine  of 
the  Winds.  On  the  right,  as  I  knew  well,  I  should  soon 
pass  the  theatre  of  Dionysus  and  not  turn  aside  for  that 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  279 

even,  and  then  would  come  the  stoa  of  Asclepius  and  a 
great  Roman  colonnade,  and  for  none  of  these  had  I  a 
glance  or  a  thought  to  spare,  for  over  the  sheer  southern 
wall  of  the  Acropolis  there  rose  the  south-west  angle  of 
the  Parthenon.  And  then,  with  a  reverence  that  was  as 
sincere  as  love  itself  and  not  less  ardent,  I  mounted  the 
steps  of  the  Propylsea,  with  the  rebuilt  shrine  on  the 
right  of  that  fairy-presence,  the  Wingless  Victory,  who 
shed  her  pinions  because  for  all  time  she  was  to  abide  in 
Athens ;  and  on  the  left  was  the  great  bastion  wall  stained 
to  an  inimitable  russet  by  the  winds  from  Salamis,  and 
between  the  great  Doric  columns  I  passed,  and  there  in 
front  was  a  bare  scraped  hill-top,  and  glowing  in  the  sun- 
set was  the  west  front  of  the  Parthenon,  that  serene  abid- 
ing presence,  set  for  a  symbol  of  what  Athens  stood  for, 
and,  no  less,  of  the  eternal  yearning  of  man  for  the  glori- 
ous city  of  God.  Behind  rose  the  violet  crown  of  hills, 
Hymettus  and  Pentelicus  and  Parnes. 

"Holy,  holy,  holy  I"  was  the  first  message  of  it,  and 
then  like  the  dawn  flowing  down  the  cliffs  of  the  Matter- 
horn,  it  illuminated  all  that  on  earth  had  the  power  to 
be  kindled  at  its  flame.  Like  the  Sphinx  it  articulated 
its  unanswerable  riddle,  and  by  its  light  it  revealed  the 
solution,  and  by  its  light  it  hid  it  again.  The  architect 
who  had  planned  it,  the  sculptor  who  had  decorated  it, 
the  hands  that  had  builded  it  and  formed  the  drums  of  its 
columns  into  monoliths  of  translucent  stone  had  thrown 
themselves  into  the  furnace  of  the  creation  that  tran- 
scended all  the  wit  and  the  cunning  of  its  creators.  They 
raised  but  a  fog  or  a  smoke  of  human  endeavour,  and 
from  outside,  no  less  than  from  the  heart  of  their  love, 
there  dawned  for  them  and  for  us  the  light  invisible. 
Whatever  love  of  beauty  was  in  their  souls  was  tran- 


280  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

scended  and  translated  into  stone;  the  glory  of  jubilant 
youth  and  of  ridden  stallions,  of  maidens  who  wove  the 
mantle  of  the  goddess,  of  priests  and  of  the  hierarchy  of 
gods  was  but  part  of  some  world-offering  to  the  austere 
and  loving  and  perfect  presence  which  they  had  instinc- 
tively worshipped,  and,  as  in  some  noble  trance,  had  set 
in  symbol  there.  With  what  wonder  must  they  have  be- 
held the  completed  work  of  their  hands,  and,  in  their 
work,  the  indwelling  of  the  power  that  was  its  consecra- 
tion. 

A  tremendous  impression,  such  as  that  first  sight  of  the 
Parthenon  undoubtedly  made  on  me,  would  be  a  very 
doubtful  gain,  if  it  caused  the  rest  of  life  to  seem  unin- 
teresting by  comparison,  for  any  kind  of  initiation  must 
quicken  rather  than  blunt  the  workaday  trivial  activities, 
and  certainly  in  this  case  I  lost  no  perception  of  the  actual 
in  the  flash  of  the  absolute.  Athens  at  that  time  (to 
fuse  together  the  impressions  of  this  and  subsequent 
years)  was  the  most  comic  of  European  capitals;  it  was 
on  the  scale  of  some  small  German  principality,  and  while 
aping  the  manner  of  Paris  in  a  backwater,  claimed  descent 
from  Pericles.  It  was  opera-bouffe,  seriously  carried  out, 
imagining  itself  in  fact  to  be  the  last  word  in  modern  en- 
lightenment no  less  than  in  classical  romance.  It  was 
with  just  that  classical  seriousness  that  the  Olympic 
games  were,  a  little  later,  reinaugurated  here,  and  with 
all  the  gaiety  of  opera-houfe  that  defeated  competitors 
passionately  argued  with  judges  and  umpires.  At  the 
top  of  the  town  came  "Constitution  Square,"  which  com- 
prised an  orange-garden  and  a  parade-ground,  where  on 
festive  occasions  the  regiments  of  Guards  deployed  and 
manoeuvred,  quite,  or  nearly,  occupying  the  centre  of  it: 
and  there  have  these  eyes  seen  the  flower  of  the  Greek 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  281 

army  routed  and  dispersed  by  an  irritated  cab-horse, 
which,  clearly  possessed  by  the  devil,  galloped  and 
wheeled  and  galloped  again  till  the  Guards  had  very 
prudently  taken  cover  among  the  orange  trees,  for  it  was 
impossible  to  make  any  effective  military  display,  when 
harassed  by  that  enraged  quadruped.  Sometimes  I  think 
that  this  distressing  scene  was  an  adumbration  of  how, 
a  few  years  later,  that  same  army  bolted  through  Thessaly 
on  the  approach  of  the  Turks.  "The  host  of  hares"  was 
the  Turkish  phrase  for  them,  and  Edhem  Pasha,  then 
commander-in-chief  of  the  Ottoman  army,  described  to 
me,  when  I  was  at  Volo  after  the  Turkish  occupation  of 
Thessaly,  the  battle  of  Pharsala.  "We  came  over  the 
hill,"  he  said,  without  enmity  and  without  contempt, 
"and  we  said  'Sh-sh-sh'  and  we  clapped  our  hands,  and 
that  was  the  battle  of  Pharsala."  .  .  .  How  complete 
has  been  the  regeneration  of  this  versatile  people  may  be 
gathered  from  their  later  campaigns  against  the  same 
adversaries. 

On  three  sides  of  Constitution  Square,  were  hotels  and 
cafes  and  the  residence  of  the  Crown  Prince  Constantine 
subsequently  cast  by  destiny  for  the  ludicrous  role  of 
"King  Tino."  On  the  fourth  side  the  Royal  Palace,  of  a 
similarly  pretentious  and  ugly  style  as  that  which  looks 
over  St.  James's  Park,  presented  a  mean  and  complicated 
face  to  the  steam-tramway  that  puffed  through  the  top 
of  the  square  on  its  way  to  Phaleron.  A  royal  baby,  that 
year  or  the  next,  had  seen  the  light,  and  we  foreign  but 
loyal  Athenians,  what  time  a  bugler  stationed  in  the 
colonnade  of  the  palace  made  all  kinds  of  music,  craned 
our  necks  and  focussed  our  eyes  to  see  the  King  come 
forth.  But  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  it  was  not  King  George 
who  emerged  but  a  perambulator  pushed  by  an  English 


282  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

nursery-maid.  But  that  was  the  dynastic  custom :  when- 
ever a  royal  personage  came  forth  from  the  palace,  the 
bugler  made  all  kinds  of  music,  so  that  the  inhabitants 
of  Athens  might,  like  good  Nebuchadnezzarites,  fall 
down  and  worship  the  pink  little  image.  .  .  .  Some- 
times, however,  their  loyalty  obtained  a  more  adult  re- 
ward, for  on  Sunday  afternoon  King  George  would  gen- 
erally go  down  to  Phaleron  in  the  steam-tram,  and  ob- 
serve the  beauties  of  nature.  On  such  occasions  he  was 
marvellously  democratic,  and  would  come  trotting  across 
the  belt  of  gravel  between  the  palace  and  the  tram-lines 
in  order  not  to  keep  his  citizens  waiting.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  if  he  had  attempted  to  do  so,  the  tram  would 
have  gone  without  him,  leaving  him  to  follow  by  the 
next,  or  study  the  beauties  of  nature  in  his  own  garden. 
He  was  democratic  also  towards  foreigners.  A  tourist 
staying  in  one  of  the  respectable  hotels  round  Constitu- 
tion Square,  for  instance,  was  quite  at  liberty  to  intimate 
to  the  Minister  of  his  country  that  an  audience  with  the 
King  would  be  agreeable,  and  in  due  course  some  footman 
from  the  palace,  in  gorgeous  well-worn  livery,  would 
bear  a  missive  with  a  tremendous  crown  on  the  envelope 
which  informed  him  that  King  George  would  give  him 
an  audience  next  day.  Or,  if  you  did  not  express  your 
loyal  desire,  it  would  perhaps  be  intimated  that  it  would 
be  quite  in  order  if  you  did  so,  and  thereupon,  on  the 
appointed  morning  you  would  put  on  your  evening  dress- 
clothes  (rather  green  in  the  sunlight),  and  a  white  tie, 
and  a  straw  hat,  and  present  yourself  at  the  palace  door. 
On  seeing  this  apparition  the  bugler  stationed  there  has 
been  known  to  give  one  throaty  blast,  thinking  that  any- 
one so  ridiculously  attired  must  be  a  royal  personage, 
then,  catching  the  affrighted  eye  of  the  visitor,  he  recog- 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  283 

nized  his  mistake,  and  with  an  engaging  smile,  saluted 
instead.  You  took  off  your  straw  hat  (or  if  it  was  winter 
your  top-coat  and  bowler)  and  were  ushered  with  a  series 
of  obeisances  into  a  small  bare  room,  furnished  with  a 
carafe  of  water.  Then  a  door  was  thrown  open,  and,  as 
in  a  dream,  you  advanced  into  a  small  apartment  with  a 
purple  paper  and  gold  stars  upon  it,  and  found  the  King. 
He  always  stood  during  these  amazing  interviews,  and 
kept  rising  on  tiptoe  with  his  feet  close  together,  till  the 
instinct  of  unconscious  mimicry  made  it  impossible  not  to 
do  the  same,  and  he  and  you  seesawed  up  and  down,  and 
talked  for  ten  minutes  about  his  friends  in  England. 
He  had  a  long  neck,  and  shoulders  like  a  hock-bottle,  and 
when  he  dipped  them  it  was  a  sign  that  he  had  sufficiently 
enjoyed  your  society.  He  was  very  bald,  and  so  also  was 
the  Crown  Prince,  who  married  the  German  Emperor's 
sister.  Both  father  and  son  (though  this  will  hardly  be 
credited)  wrote  testimonials  in  praise  of  some  fluid  which, 
when  rubbed  on  the  head,  produces  or  preserves  a  fine 
crop  of  hair.  And  if  the  hair-grease  did  them  no  good,  as 
it  apparently  didn't,  I  hope  there  was  some  sort  of  palm- 
grease  that  made  their  testimonial  worth  their  while. 

Queen  Olga  was  Russian,  daughter  of  the  Grand  Duke 
Constantine,  a  wonderfully  beautiful  woman,  whom  I 
had  seen  first  when  I  came  up  from  Marlborough  for 
the  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria  in  1887.  She  had  an  en- 
gaging habit  when  she  came  round  the  room  at  balls  or 
after  dinner  in  order  to  talk  to  the  guests,  of  putting  her 
hands  on  the  shoulders  of  the  women  she  was  conversing 
with,  and  shoving  them  back  into  their  seats,  so  that  they 
should  sit  down  without  ceremony.  Sometimes  she 
would  want  to  talk  to  two  or  three  people  together,  and 
down  they  would  go  like  ninepins,  while  she  stood.    Be- 


284  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

hind  her  came  the  King  still  playing  seesaw,  and  behind 
him  the  Crown  Prince,  who  did  the  same  to  the  men  he 
wanted  to  talk  to,  and  a  little  while  afterwards  there  was 
Prince  George  and  Princess  Marie,  both  putting  people 
into  their  places.  It  was  all  very  democratic,  but  also 
slightly  embarrassing,  because  after  large  Prince  George 
had  pushed  you  back  into  a  low  chair,  you  had  to  crane 
your  head  up,  as  if  you  were  talking  to  somebody  on  the 
top  of  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's,  the  dome  inverted  being 
represented  by  his  tremendous  and  circular  waistcoat. 
After  him  came  Prince  Nicholas,  but  he  had  always 
something  terribly  important  and  slightly  broad,  in  the 
shape  perhaps  of  a  "Limerick,"  to  communicate.  So  as 
these  could  not  be  shouted,  conversation  was  held  on 
more  reasonable  levels. 

King  George's  family,  as  all  the  world  knows,  had 
made  magnificent  marriages.  He  was  the  brother  of 
Queen  Alexandra,  and  of  the  Dowager  Empress  of  Russia, 
and  his  eldest  son  had  brought  as  wife  to  Athens  the 
German  Emperor's  sister,  to  whom,  I  suspect,  these  bugle- 
regulations  were  due.  The  "in-laws"  consequently  were 
often  being  bugled  for,  and  the  tram  to  Phaleron  on  a 
Sunday  afternoon  would  now  be  a  fine  target  for  Bol- 
sheviks. The  Crown  Princess  was  constantly  engaged 
during  these  years  on  her  wifely  duties,  and  the  arrival 
of  the  Empress  Frederick  in  Athens  usually  implied  that 
there  would  soon  be  fireworks  in  Constitution  Square. 
But  when  I  write  of  her,  there  is  no  opera-bouffe  atmos- 
phere that  I  can  attempt  or  desire  to  reproduce,  for  tragic 
were  her  past  years,  bitter  her  present  years,  and  grim 
agonies  of  mortal  disease  were  already  making  ambush 
for  her.  During  the  three  or  four  ensuing  years,  when, 
instead  of  being  at  the  British  School  or  at  a  hotel,  I  spent 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  285 

some  months  at  the  British  Legation,  where  Sir  Edwin 
Egerton  was  Minister,  I  found  myself  on  strangely  per- 
sonal terms  with  her.  She  had  been  a  friend  of  an  uncle 
of  mine,  who  became  a  nationalized  German  after  years 
of  living  in  Wiesbaden,  and  starting  from  that,  she 
talked  with  a  curious  unrestraint.  Bitter  little  stinged 
remarks  came  out,  "You  are  happy  in  being  English"; 
or  "When  I  come  to  London  I  am  only  a  visitor."  On 
one  occasion  I  was  left  alone  with  her  on  a  terrace  above 
the  outlying  rooms  at  the  Legation,  and  to  my  profound 
discomfort,  she  began  pacing  up  and  down  with  smothered 
ejaculations.  Then  quite  suddenly  she  said  to  me,  "But 
Willie  is  mad!"  I  suppose  I  idiotically  looked  as  if  this 
was  some  joke,  and  she  shook  her  outstretched  hand  at 
me,  "I  mean  that  he  is  mad,"  she  repeated.  "Willie  is 
mad."  .  .  .  Then  quite  suddenly,  with  the  arrested 
movement  of  a  bird,  wounded  to  death  in  mid-air,  she 
ceased  from  her  tragic  flight,  and  came  to  earth.  "If 
you  are  going  to  bathe  again  at  Phaleron,"  she  said,  with 
a  laugh,  alluding  to  an  incident  of  the  day  before,  "I 
must  be  sure  there  are  no  clothes  on  the  beach,  before  I 
sit  down  to  sketch.  You  came  out  of  the  water,  and  there 
was  I  .  .  ." 

Or  the  bugle  sounded,  and  there  was  the  unhappiest  of 
the  Czars  looking  very  small  beside  his  cousin  Prince 
George.  Or  again,  one  afternoon,  when,  by  perpetual 
permission,  I  was  allowed  to  seek  the  shade  and  coolness 
of  the  palace  gardens,  I  heard  the  trampling  of  foot-steps, 
and  shrill  expostulations,  from  behind  a  hedge  of  ole- 
ander. Round  the  corner  came  the  originators  of  this 
disturbance.  .  .  .  King  George  seemed  to  have  taken  a 
dislike  to  his  sister's  hat,  and  had  plucked  it  from  her 
head  and  was  kicking  it  along  the  garden  path,  while  she 


286  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

followed  remonstrating.  "But  it's  an  ugly  hat,"  said 
he,  delighted  to  find  some  kind  of  umpire,  "and  there- 
fore I  took  it  and  I  kicked  it,  and  she  cannot  wear  it 
any  more.  .  .  ."  (Was  there  ever  anything  so  like  the 
immortal  Rose  and  the  Ring?)  "My  hat  I"  said  the 
injured  owner  tersely,  as  she  recovered  her  hopelessly 
damaged  property.  .  .  .  "So  rude  of  you,  George." 

My  first  spring  in  Greece  was  mostly  spent  out  of 
Athens,  for  with  another  student  I  was  put  in  charge  of 
the  British  excavations  at  Megalopolis.  All  the  plums 
had  already  been  picked  out  of  it,  for  the  theatre  had  been 
completely  cleared,  and  the  excavation  of  the  year  before 
had  laid  bare  the  entire  plan  of  the  great  Council  hall, 
the  Thersilion,  built  in  the  time  of  Epaminondas,  so  that 
this  year  excavation  was  equivalent  to  sitting  on  a  wall 
while  a  lot  of  workmen  removed  tons  of  earth  in  which 
nothing  could  possibly  be  discovered.  It  was  not  thrill- 
ing, but  at  least  one  could  incessantly  talk  to  them  in 
what  purported  to  be  modem  Greek,  until  it  became  so. 
There  had  been  considerable  excitement  about  Mega- 
lopolis the  year  before,  for  the  British  excavators  had 
thought  they  had  triumphantly  refuted  the  German 
theory,  announced  by  Dr.  Dorpfeld,  that  fourth  century 
Greek  theatres  had  no  stage.  They  had  unearthed  steps 
and  columns,  which,  they  considered,  proved  the  existence 
of  a  stage,  and,  rather  prematurely,  had  announced  their 
anti-German  discovery  in  the  Hellenic  Journal  with 
something  resembling  a  crow  of  satisfaction.  On  which" 
this  dreadful  Dr.  Dorpfeld  came  down  from  Athens  with 
a  note-book  and  a  tape  measure,  and  in  a  couple  of  hours 
in  the  pouring  rain  had  proved  quite  conclusively,  so 
that  no  further  argument  was  possible,  that  the  British, 
with  a  year  to  think  about  it,  had  quite  misinterpreted 


E.   F.   BENSOX,   JET.   26 


[Page   287 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  289 

their  own  evidence,  and  demonstrated  how  what  they  had 
taken  for  a  stage  was  merely  a  back  wall.  Their  re- 
searches in  fact  had  merely  confirmed  his  theory.  Then 
he  rolled  up  his  measure  and  went  back  to  Athens.  .  .  . 
So  another  and  I  cleaned  up  these  rather  depressing  re- 
mains, and  when  that  was  done  we  hired  mules  and  went 
a-wandering  through  the  country  and  saw  the  spring 
"blossom  by  blossom"  (even  as  Beesly  had  read)  alight 
on  the  hills.  Blossom  by  blossom,  too,  Greece  itself,  no 
longer  pictured  in  photographs  or  bored  for  in  books, 
opened  its  myriad  lovelinesses,  even  as  the  scarlet  ane- 
mone made  flame  in  the  thickets,  and  the  nightingales 
"turned  the  heart  of  the  night  to  fire"  in  the  oleanders  by 
the  Eurotas.  We  visited  Homeric  Mycense,  and  Epi- 
daurus,  the  Harrogate  of  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  and  in 
archaeological  intervals  I  speared  mullet  by  the  light  of 
a  flaming  torch  on  moonless  nights  with  the  fishermen  of 
Nauplia,  and  ate  them  for  early  breakfast,  broiled  on 
the  sea-shore,  before  the  sun  was  up.  I  crossed  the  Gulf 
of  Corinth  and  went  to  Delphi,  where  the  French  school 
were  beginning  the  excavations  that  were  destined  to  yield 
more  richly  than  any  soil  in  Greece  except  the  precinct 
at  Olympia.  There,  too,  I  went,  and  if  to  me  the  Par- 
thenon had  been  a  revelation  of  the  glory  of  God,  there  I 
took  my  shoes  from  off  my  feet,  and  worshipped  the  glory 
of  man,  because  the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles  "caring  for  the 
infant  Dionysus,"  embodied,  once  and  for  all,  the  pos- 
sible, the  ultimate  beauty  of  man,  even  as  the  Louvre  held 
the  ultimate  glory  of  woman.  ...  A  few  weeks  more 
in  Athens  were  busy  with  the  record  of  the  meagre  re- 
sults from  Megalopolis,  and  I  left  for  England,  know- 
ing in  my  very  bones  that  Athens  was  in  some  subtle  way 
my  spiritual  mother,  so  that  on  many  subsequent  jour- 


200  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

neys,  as  I  went  from  England  there,  and  from  there  back 
to  England  again,  I  travelled  but  from  home  to  home, 
OLKodev  oUabe. 

Dodo  had  been  put  back  in  her  drawer,  after  her  ex- 
pedition to  Henry  James:  now  for  the  second  time  I 
took  her  out  and  tasted  her,  as  if  to  see  whether  she 
seemed  to  have  mellowed  like  a  good  wine,  or  become 
sour  like  an  inferior  one,  in  which  case  I  would  very 
gladly  have  poured  her  on  the  earth  like  water,  and 
started  again.  But  I  could  not,  reading  her  once  more, 
altogether  cast  her  off:  she  had  certain  gleams  of  vitality 
about  her,  and  with  my  mother's  connivance  and  help 
again  I  submitted  her  to  a  professional  verdict.  This 
time  it  was  my  mother's  friend,  Mrs.  Harrison,  known  to 
our  admiring  family  as  "Lucas  Malet,"  author  of  the 
adorable  Colonel  Enderbfs  Wife,  who  was  selected  to 
pronounce  on  my  story,  and  again,  I  am  afraid,  it  was 
without  the  slightest  realization  of  this  highway  robbery 
on  the  time  of  an  author  that  I  despatched  the  book. 
Anyhow  those  two  assaults  on  Henry  James  and  Lucas 
Malet  have  produced  in  me  a  fellow-feeling  for  criminals 
such  as  I  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  so  that  now, 
when,  as  occasionally  happens,  some  light-hearted 
marauder  announces  that  he  or  she  (it  is  usually  she)  is 
sending  me  her  manuscript,  which  she  hopes  I  won't  mind 
reading,  and  telling  her  as  soon  as  possible  exactly  what 
I  think  of  it,  and  to  what  publisher  she  had  better  send 
it  (perhaps  T  would  write  him  a  line  too)  and  whether 
the  heroine  isn't  a  little  overdone  (but  her  mother  thinks 
her  excellent),  and  would  I  be  careful  to  register  it  wlien 
I  return  it,  and  if  before  next  Thursday  to  this  address, 
and  if  after  next  Friday  to  another,  etc.  etc.,  I  try  to 
behave  as  Lucas  Malet  behaved  in  similar  circumstances. 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  291 

I  do  not  for  a  moment  say  that  I  succeed,  but  I  can  still 
remember  how  pleasant  it  should  seem,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  aspirant  scribbler,  that  somebody  should  be 
permitted  to  read  what  has  been  written  with  such  rapture 
and  how  important  it  all  is.  .  .  . 

But  I  can  never  hope  to  emulate  Lucas  Malet's  tact 
and  wisdom  in  her  genial,  cordial,  and  honest  reply  (when 
she  had  had  the  privilege  of  wading  through  these  sheets), 
for  they  still  remain  to  me,  who  know  her  answer  almost 
by  heart,  to  be  the  first  and  the  last  word  in  the  true 
theory  of  the  writing  of  fiction.  Her  deft  incisions  dis- 
sected, from  lungs  and  heart  and  outwards  to  the  delicate 
fibre  of  the  skin  that  protects  and  expresses  the  life  within, 
the  structure  of  stories,  short  or  long,  that  are  actually 
alive.  First  must  come  the  "idea,"  the  life  that  is  to 
vitalize  the  complete  animal,  so  that  its  very  hair  and 
nails  are  fed  with  blood.  .  .  .  And  then,  since  I  cannot 
possibly  find  words  as  apt  and  as  sober  as  hers  I  will  quote 
from  the  letters  themselves. 

"First  the  idea,  then  the  grouping,  which  is  equivalent  to  our 
drama — then  a  search  for  models  from  whom  to  draw.  Most 
young  English  writers — the  artistic  sense  being  a  matter  of  ex- 
perience, not  of  instinct,  with  most  of  us — begin  just  the  other 
way  about.  Begin  with  their  characters  .  .  .  rummage  about  for 
a  story  in  which  to  place  them,  and  too  often  leave  the  idea  out 
of  the  business  altogether.  .  .  .  One  evil  consequence  of  this 
method — among  many  others — is  that  there  is  a  distracting  lack 
of  completeness  and  ensemble  in  so  much  English  work.  The 
idea  should  be  like  the  thread  on  which  beads  are  strung.  It 
shouldn't  show,  except  at  the  two  ends ;  but  in  point  of  fact  it 
keeps  the  beads  all  together  and  in  their  proper  relation." 

Then,  to  one  already  hugely  interested  in  this  admir- 
able creed  of  the  art  of  fiction,  Lucas  Malet  proceeded 


292  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

to  a  dissection,  just  and  kind  and  ruthless,  of  the  story 
as  it  stood.  She  hurt  in  order  to  heal,  she  cut  in  order  that 
healthy  tissue  (if  there  was  any)  might  have  the  chance 
to  grow.  She  showed  me  by  v/hat  process  (if  I  applied  it 
seriously  and  successfully)  I  might  convert  my  Dodo- 
doll  into  something  that  did  not  only  squeak  when  pressed 
in  the  stomach,  and  gave  no  other  sign  of  vitality  than 
closing  its  eyes  when  it  was  laid  flat.  In  consequence, 
greatly  exhilarated  by  this  douche  of  cold  water,  I  col- 
lected such  fragments  of  an  "idea"  as  existed,  revised 
what  I  had  written,  and  wrote  (in  pursuance  of  the 
"idea")  the  second  volume,  as  it  subsequently  appeared, 
in  those  days  when  novels  were  originally  issued  in  three 
or  two  volumes  at  the  price  of  a  guinea  and  a  half  or  a 
guinea.  I  finished  it  that  autumn,  sent  it  to  the  publisher 
recommended  by  Lucas  Malet,  who  instantly  accepted  it. 
It  came  out  in  the  following  spring,  that  of  1893.  I  was 
out  in  Greece  again  at  the  time,  and  though  it  was  my 
first  public  appearance  (since  Sketches  from  Marlborough 
may  be  considered  as  a  local  phenomenon)  I  feel  sure 
that  from  the  time  when,  with  trembling  pride,  I  cor- 
rected the  long  inconvenient  galley  sheets  that  kept  slip- 
ping on  to  the  floor,  I  gave  no  further  thought  to  it  at 
all.  Bad  or  good,  I  had  done  my  best;  what  happened 
concerned  me  no  more,  for  I  was  quite  absorbed  in  the 
study  of  the  precinct  of  Asclepios  on  the  slopes  of  the 
Acropolis,  in  the  life  at  Athens,  and  in  a  volume  of  short 
stories  that  I  began  to  write  with  a  pen  still  wet,  so  to 
speak,  with  the  final  corrections  on  the  proof  sheets  of 
Dodo.  She  was  done  with,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  and 
it  was  high  time,  now  that  I  was  twenty-five,  to  get  on 
with  something  else,  before  the  frosts  of  senility  paralysed 
all  further  effort. 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  293 

For  such  a  person  as  I  happened  to  be,  that,  as  I  then 
believed  and  still  believe,  was  the  wisest  resolution  I 
could  make.  The  habit  of  immediate  activity,  physically 
or  mentally  violent,  had,  from  the  days  when  butterflies, 
plants,  athletics,  friendship,  Saturday  Magazines  were  all 
put  under  contribution  to  feed  the  raging  energies  of  life, 
become  an  instinct.  If  there  was  a  kick  left  in  my  wholly 
boyish  nature,  it  had  become  a  habit  to  kick,  and  not  to 
save  the  energy  for  any  future  emergency:  if  there  was 
a  minute  to  spare,  somehow  to  use  or  enjoy  it.  To  what 
use  that  minute  and  that  kick  were  devoted,  so  I  now 
see,  did  not  particularly  matter:  the  point  was  to  kick 
for  just  that  minute.  No  doubt  there  are  other  and  ad- 
mirable uses  to  which  energy  may  be  put;  some  make 
reservoirs,  into  which  they  pour  and  store  their  vital  force, 
and  while  it  increases,  screw  down  their  sluice,  and  let 
the  gathered  waters  rest  and  reflect.  Such  as  these  prob- 
ably achieve  the  most  abiding  results,  for  when  they 
choose  to  raise  their  sluice,  they  can,  by  the  judicious 
use  of  winch  and  shutter,  continue  to  irrigate  the  field 
which  they  have  determined  to  make  fruitful,  for  a  period 
that  they  can  certainly  estimate.  They  bum  a  steady 
unwavering  candle  which  will  always  illuminate  a  fixed 
area,  and  from  the  areas  which  do  not  concern  them  they 
hide  their  ray  and  thus  economize  their  wax  and  their 
wick.  But  how  surely  are  there  others  who  from  their 
very  nature  are  unable  to  construct  their  reservoirs  or 
burn  this  one  decorous  candle.  Whatever  head  of  water 
there  is,  it  must  be  instantly  dispersed,  whatever  candle 
there  is,  it  must  be  lit  at  both  ends,  and  if  that  is  not 
enough,  it  must  be  broken  in  half,  and  its  new  ends  of 
wicks  kindled  and  used  for  the  exploration  of  some  trump- 
ery adventure :  "trumpery,"  that  is  to  say,  in  the  vocabu- 


294  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

lary  of  the  wise  and  prudent,  but  how  colossal  in  the 
sight  of  the  wild-eyed  adventurer.  And  just  here,  just 
where  a  moral  lesson  should  be  drawn  showing  the  early 
decay  and  the  untimely  end  of  these  spendthrifts  of 
energy,  the  whole  tendency  of  Nature  lies  in  precisely  the 
opposite  direction  to  that  in  which  natural  and  moral 
economy  ought  to  tend,  for  it  is  the  careful  who  grow 
early  old,  and  the  careful  investor  of  energy  who  declares 
bankruptcy,  and  retires  in  middle  life  to  the  club  win- 
dows, where  he  shows  a  bald  head  to  St.  James's  Street, 
and  a  sour  visage  to  the  waiters.  Somehow  so  it  most 
inexorably  seems,  those  who  spend,  have ;  those  who  save, 
lack.  Not  that  the  spender  could,  by  the  laws  and  in- 
stincts of  his  nature,  have  done  otherwise  than  court 
bankruptcy :  not  that  the  investor  could  have  done  other- 
wise than  court  affluence.  But  the  one  careful  candle, 
as  a  matter  of  experience,  gets  blown  out,  and  the  irrele- 
vant candle-ends  continue  to  flare.  .  .  . 

So,  after  this  second  visit  to  Greece,  I  came  home  to 
find  to  my  incredulous  and  incurious  surprise,  that  in  the 
interval  I  had  become,  just  for  the  focus  of  a  few  months, 
famous  or  infamous.  One  of  those  rare  phenomena,  less 
calculable  than  the  path  of  a  comet,  which  periodically  is 
to  destroy  the  world,  had  occurred,  and  there  was  a 
"boom"  in  Dodo^  and  no  one  was  more  astonished  than 
the  author,  when  his  mother  met  him  arriving  by  the 
boat  train  at  Victoria,  and  hinted  at  what  was  happening. 
All  sorts  of  adventitious  circumstances  aided  it:  it  was 
thought  extremely  piquant  that  a  son  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury  should  have  written  a  book  so  frankly 
unepiscopal,  and  quite  a  lot  of  ingenious  little  paragraph- 
ists  invented  stories  of  how  I  had  read  it  aloud  to  my 
father  and  described  his  disconcertedness :  the  title-role 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  295 

and  other  characters  were  assigned  to  various  persons 
who  happened  then  to  be  figuring  in  the  world,  but  apart 
from  all  these  adventitious  aids,  this  energetic  and  trivial 
experiment  had — in  those  ancient  days — a  certain  novelty 
of  treatment.  There  were  no  explanations;  whatever  lit- 
tle life  its  characters  were  possessed  of,  they  revealed  by 
their  own  unstinted  speech.  That,  as  I  have  already  ex- 
plained, had  been  the  plan  of  it  in  my  mind,  and  tl^e 
execution,  whatever  the  merits  of  the  plan  might  be,  was 
in  accordance  with  it.  It  went  through  edition  after 
edition,  in  that  two-volume  form,  price  a  guinea  (against 
which  shortly  afterwards  the  libraries  revolted)  and  all 
the  raging  and  clamour,  of  course,  only  made  it  sell  the 
more.  It  had  received  very  scant  notice  in  the  Press 
itself;  what  (as  always  happens)  made  it  flourish  so 
furiously  was  that  people  talked  about  it. 

But  its  success  apart  from  the  delightful  comedy  of 
such  a  first  act  to  its  author,  led  on  to  a  truly  violent  situ- 
ation when  the  curtain  rose  again,  for  the  critics,  justly 
enraged  that  this  rare  phenomenon  called  a  "boom" 
should  not  have  been  detected  and  heralded  by  their 
auguries  and  by  them  damned  or  deified,  laid  aside  a 
special  pen  for  me,  ready  for  the  occasion  when  I  should 
be  so  imprudent  as  to  publish  another  novel;  and  they 
all  procured  a  large  bottle  of  that  hot  ink  which  Dante 
dipped  for, 

When  his  left  hand  i'  the  hair  of  the  wicked, 
Back  he  held  the  brow  and  pricked  its  stigma 
Bit  unto  the  live  man's  flesh  for  parchment, 
Loosed  him,  laughed  to  see  the  writing  rankle, 

and  since  they  were  proposing  to  "let  the  wretch  go 
festering"  through  London,  they  read  up  Macaulay's  re- 


296  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

view  of  Mr.  Robert  Montgomery's  poems  to  see  how  it 
was  done.  If  they  had  not  noticed  Dodo^  they  would  at 
least  notice  her  successor.  Indeed  the  fairy  godmother 
who  presents  a  young  author  at  his  public  christening 
with  a  boom,  brings  him  a  doubtful  gift,  for  when  next  I 
challenged  attention  all  these  little  Macaulays  and 
Dantes  uncorked  their  hot  ink,  and  waited  pen  in  hand 
till  Mr.  Methuen  sent  them  their  "advance  copies."  Then, 
saying  ''one,  two,  three — go,"  they  all  produced  on  the 
birth-morning  of  the  unfortunate  book  columns  and 
columns  of  the  most  blistering  abuse  that  I  remember 
ever  beholding  in  God-fearing  journals.  This  blasted 
infant  was  a  small  work  called  The  Rubicon,  now  so 
completely  forgotten  that  I  must  ask  the  reader  to  take 
my  word  for  it  that  it  was  quite  a  poor  book.  It  was  not 
even  very,  very  bad:  it  was  just  poor.  Critics  have  hun- 
dreds of  poor  books  submitted  to  their  commiserated 
notice,  and  they  are  quite  accustomed  to  that,  and  tell 
the  public  in  short  paragraphs  that  the  work  in  ques- 
tion is  "decidedly  powerful,"  or  "intensely  interesting" 
or  "utterly  futile,"  and  there  is  an  end  of  it  as  far  as  they 
are  concerned.  Had  this  blasted  infant  been  a  first  book 
it  would  naturally  have  received  no  more  than  a  few  rude 
little  notices,  and  perhaps  a  few  polite  little  notices.  But 
as  it  was  the  successor  to  the  abhorred  comet  it  was 
concertedly  singled  out  for  the  wrath  of  the  Olympians. 
The  candidatus  exercitus  of  the  entire  Press  went  forth 
with  howitzers  and  Maxims  (in  both  senses),  with  can- 
nons of  all  calibres,  with  rifles  and  spears  and  arrows  and 
sharp  tongues  to  annihilate  this  poor  little  May-fly.  That 
I  am  not  exaggerating  the  stupendous  character  of  this 
fusillade  can  be  shown  from  a  few  extracts.  In  those 
days  I  used  to  take  in  Press-cuttings,  and  among  a  heap 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  297 

of  more  precious  relics  in  a  forgotten  box  I  came  across 
the  other  day  a  packet  of  these,  which  contained  such 
flowers  as  I  could  not  leave  to  blush  unseen,  and  I  picked 
and  here  present  a  little  nosegay  of  them. 

(1)  The  Pall  Mall  Gazette.     {The  Rubicon,  E.  F. 
Benson.) 

"Mr.  Benson's  New  Play. 
Dramatis  Personce. 

Eahumee  Dodo.       Madonna  de  Clapham. 
Lord  Ansemia.  Jelly  Fish. 

Donjuans  {sic).       Vulgarities.       Indecencies. 
Timet  The  Middle  Classes.       Place,  Le  Pays  Inconnu. 

Mise  en  scene.  Fluff." 

Then  follows  a  short  analysis,  not  so  fragrantly  precrous, 
and  then  comes  comment. 

"All  the  gutter-elements  of  Dodo  ave  rehashed  and  warmed  up 
again  with  no  touch  of  novelty  or  improvement  or  chastisement. 
.  .  .  The  Lives  of  the  Bad  are  interesting  assuredly  .  .  .  but 
then  they  must  be  living  and  bad,  and  these  pithless  people  are 
only  galvanic  [galvanized?]  and  vulgar.  We  do  not  wish  to  be 
hard  on  Mr.  Benson.  Let  him  give  three  years  to  investigating 
the  distinctions  between  good  writing  and  bad  writing,  between 
wit  and  vulgarity  .  .  .  and  then  we  should  not  be  surprised  if  he 
produced  something  worth  finding  serious  fault  with." 

(2)  The  (late)  Standard.     (A  column  and  a  half.) 

"Taking  the  book  as  a  whole,  it  is  an  absolute  failure.  As  a 
rule,  the  writing  is  forced  and  uneasy,  the  reflections  confused  or 
lumbering.  The  character-drawing  is  crude  and  uncertain.  It  is 
emphatically  one  of  those  books  that  are  sansual,  earthly  and 
unwholesome," 


298  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

(3)  Vanity  Fair.     (One  column.) 

"Of  style  he  has  little :  of  wit  he  has  no  idea  ...  of  plot  there 
is  less  in  The  Rubicon  than  is  generally  to  be  found  in  a  penny 
novelette:  of  knowledge  of  Society  (if  he  have  any)  Mr.  Benson 
shows  less  here  than  is  usually  possessed  by  the  nursery-gov- 
erness ;  and  in  grammar  he  seems  to  be  as  little  expert  as  he  is  in 
natural  science :  of  which  his  knowledge  seems  to  equal  his  smat- 
tering of  the  Classics  .  .  .  ill-named,  full  of  faults,  betraying 
much  ignorance  of  manners  and  unknowledge  \sic'\  of  human  na- 
ture :  a  book,  indeed,  compact  of  folly  and  slovenliness :  guiltless 
of  any  real  touch  of  constructive  art ;  without  form  and  void :  a 
book  of  which  I  fear  that  I  have  made  too  much," 

(4)  Daily  Chronicle.     (One  column.) 

"A  Puzzle  for  Posterity. 

What  will  the  critical  students  of,  say,  two  generations  ahead, 
make  of  the  fact  that  in  the  spring  of  1894  ^^^  newspapers  of 
London  treated  the  appearance  of  a  new  novel  by  Mr.  E.  F.  Ben- 
son as  an  event  of  striking  importance  in  the  world  of  books? 
The  thought  that  death  will  rid  us  of  the  responsibility  for  that 
awkward  explanation  lends  an  almost  welcome  aspect  to  the 
grave.  .  .  . 

That  The  Rubicon  is  the  worst-written,  falsest  and  emptiest  of 
the  decade,  it  would  be,  perhaps,  too  much  to  say.  In  these  days 
of  elastic  publishing  standards  and  moneyed  amateurs,  many 
queer  things  are  done,  and  Mr.  Benson's  work  is  a  shade  better 
than  the  poorest  of  the  stuff  which  would-be  novelists  pay  for  the 
privilege  of  seeing  in  print.  ...  A  certain  interest  attaches,  no 
doubt,  to  the  demonstration  which  it  affords  that  a  young  gentle- 
man of  university  training  can  meet  the  female  amateurs  on  their 
own  ground,  and  be  every  whit  as  maudlin  and  absurd  as  they 
know  how  to  be.  But  the  sisterhood  have  an  advantage  over  him 
in  the  fact  that  they  can  spell.  .  .  .  There  are  a  score  of  glaring 
grammatical  errors,  to  say  nothing  of  the  clumsiness  and  incompe- 
tency which  mark  three  sentences  out  of  five  throughout  the  book. 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  200 

Bad  workmanship  might  be  put  aside  as  the  fault  of  inexperience, 
if  the  young  man  had  an  actual  story  to  tell  .  .  .  but  there  is 
nothing  of  that  sort  here.  .  .  .  The  heroine  is  from  time  to  time 
led  over  to  as  near  [sic]  the  danger  line  of  decency  as  the  libraries 
will  permit.  She  is  made  to  utter  several  suggestive  speeches,  and 
once  or  twice  quite  skirts  the  frontier  of  the  salacious.  .  .  ." 

(5)  The  World.  (Length  unknown:  I  cannot  find  the 
second  half  of  it.) 

"But,  alas !  Eva  Hayes  in  The  Rubicon  is  quite  as  vulgar,  quite 
as  blatant  in  the  bad  taste  she  is  pleased  to  exhibit  on  every  oc- 
casion, as  her  predecessor  Dodo,  and  is  dull  beyond  description 
into  the  bargain.  From  beginning  to  end  of  the  two  volumes 
there  is  not  one  spark  or  gleam  of  humour,  or  sign  of  true  obser- 
vation and  knowledge  of  humanity." 

(6)  The  (late)  St.  James's  Budget.     (Six  columns.) 

"Another  Unbirched  Heroine. 

It  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  son  of  an  Archbishop  was 
hardly  the  sort  of  person  to  shine  in  this  kind  of  literature,  but 
Mr.  Benson  has  taught  us  better  than  that.  Yet  our  thanks  are 
due  to  him  for  one  thing :  his  book  consists  of  only  two  volumes ; 
it  might  have  been  in  three.  .  .  . 

How  they  Mate  in  the  'Hupper  Suckles.'  .  .  . 
Languour,  Cigarettes  and  Blasphemies.  .  .  . 

We  conclude  this  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  Mr.  Benson  with 
the  bold  avowal  that  we  regard  The  Rubicon  as  almost  truly  per- 
fect of  its  kind,  and  probably  unsurpassable.  Any  one  of  Shake- 
speare's most  remarkable  gifts  may  be  found,  perhaps,  in  equal 
measure  in  the  writings  of  some  minor  author ;  but  none  ever  had 
such  a  union  of  so  many  as  he.  So  it  is  with  Mr.  Benson.  A 
school-girl's  idea  of  'plot,'  a  nursery-governess's  knowledge  of  the 
world ;  a  gentleman's  'gentleman's'  views  of  high  life ;  an  under- 
graduate's sense  of  style  and  store  of  learning;  a  society  para- 
graphist's  fine  feeling  and  good  taste ;  a  man-milliner's  notion  of 
creating  character:  of  each  of  these  you  may  find  plenty  of  evi- 


300  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

dence  in  the  novels  of  the  day;  but  nowhere  else — unless  it  be 
in  Dodo — will  they  all  be  found  welded  into  one  harmonious 
unity  as  they  are  here !  .  .  ." 

Here  is  but  the  most  random  plucking  of  these  blos- 
soms, but  what  a  nosegay  I  The  flower  from  Vanity  Fair 
grew  of  course  from  the  same  root  as  that  from  the  St. 
Jameses  Budget,  and  this  is  interesting  as  showing  the 
excellent  co-ordination  between  these  different  attacks. 
As  a  Press-campaign  on  an  infinitesimal  scale,  I  give  the 
foregoing  as  a  classical  example.  No  book,  however  bad, 
could  possibly  have  called  forth,  in  itself,  so  combined 
an  onslaught :  every  gun  in  Grub  Street  was  primed  and 
ready  and  sighted  not  on  The  Rubicon  at  all,  but  on  the 
author  of  Dodo.  But  herein  is  shown  the  inexpediency 
of  using  up  all  your  ammunition  at  once,  on  so  insignifi- 
ca't  a  target.  It  was  clear  that  if  the  respectable  jour- 
nals of  London  made  so  vigorous  an  offensive,  that  offen- 
sive had  to  be  final,  and  the  war  to  be  won.  Still  more 
clear  was  it  that,  if  this  was  not  a  preconcerted,  malicious 
and  murderous  campaign  not  on  a  particular  book,  but 
on  an  individual,  the  entire  columns  of  the  London  Press 
must  henceforth  be  completely  devoted  to  crushing  in- 
ferior novels.  The  Rubicon  was  but  one  of  this  innumer- 
able company:  if  the  Press  had  determined  to  crush  in- 
ferior novels,  it  was  clear  that  for  a  considerable  time 
there  would  be  no  room  in  its  columns  for  politics,  or 
sport  or  foreign  news  or  anything  else  whatever.  Not 
even  for  advertisements,  unless  we  regard  such  attacks 
as  being  unpaid  advertisements.   .   .   . 

So  there  was  no  more  firing  for  the  present,  and  it  was 
all  rather  reminiscent  of  the  tale  of  how  Oscar  Wilde 
went  out  shooting,  and  fell  down  flat  on  the  discharge  of 
his  own  gun. 


ATHENS  AND  DODO  301 

The  Press,  after  that,  had  nothing  more  to  shoot  at 
me,  for  all  their  heaviest  shells  had  been  launched;  so 
the  blighted  author  walked  off,  as  Mr.  Mantalini  said, 
as  comfortable  as  demnition,  and  proceeded  vigorously 
to  write  The  Babe,  B.A.  and  other  tranquil  works,  just 
as  if  he  had  not  been  blown  into  a  thousand  fragments. 

The  Press-notices,  in  fact,  from  which  these  six  ex- 
tracts are  taken,  were  a  huge  lark,  and  one  day  I  found 
my  father  (who  so  far  from  summoning  family  councils 
on  the  subject  never  spoke  to  me  about  my  public  scrib- 
blings  at  all)  wide-eyed  and  absorbed  in  one  of  these  con- 
temporary revilings.  Suddenly  he  threw  his  head  back 
with  a  great  shout  of  laughter,  and  slapped  me  on  the 
back.  "You've  got  broad  enough  shoulders  to  stand  that 
sort  of  thing,"  he  said.  "Come  along,  are  the  horses 
ready?"  and  out  we  went  riding.  But  less  humorous 
were  certain  private  kicks  which  I  got  (and  no  doubt 
deserved)  from  less  ludicrous  antagonists.  Of  these  the 
chief,  and  the  most  respected  both  then  and  now,  must  be 
nameless.  He  had  been  so  hot  in  appreciation  and  so  cor- 
dial over  Dodo,  politely  observing  in  it  a  "high  moral 
beauty"  that  I  find  him  (in  this  same  forgotten  box)  writ- 
ing to  me,  before  the  appearance  of  The  Rubicon,  in  these 
words  a  propos  of  the  growing  public  taste  for  realism: 

"The  public  in  the  next  generation  will  be  what  you  and  one 
or  two  others  like  you  choose  to  make  it.  Good  work  in  any  style 
gives  that  style  vogue.  .  .  .  It's  ever  when  you  are  most  serious 
you  are  at  your  best.    Work,  work  and  live." 

Well,  I  worked  and  lived  like  the  devil  for  strenuous- 
ness.  Then  The  Rubicon  made  its  appearance,  and  the 
same  friend  took  a  blistering  pen  instead : 


302  OUR  FAINIILY  AFFAIRS 

"If  anything  could  possibly  give  a  more  serious  blow  to  your 
chances  of  future  and  legitimate  success  than  the  publication  of 
The  Rubicon,  it  would  be  to  bring  out  within  three  or  four  years 
another  novel.  ...  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  you  have  formed 
the  slightest  conception  of  the  true  situation.  It  is  this.  Your 
first  book,  from  accidental  and  even  parasitic  causes — things  that 
were  not  in  the  book  at  all — enjoyed  an  entirely  abnormal  and 
baseless  success.  You  have  now  to  begin  again,  and  for  several 
years  the  public  will  certainly  not  listen  to  you  as  a  novelist." 

For  the  life  of  me,  I  cannot  now,  reading  these  ex- 
plosive records  over  again,  determine  whether  I  could 
have  gained  anything  by  paying  the  smallest  attention  to 
them.  Logically,  it  was  impossible  to  do  so,  for  they 
clearly  were  directed,  as  I  have  said,  not  against  this 
wretched  old  Rubicon,  but  against  the  person  who  had 
dared  to  capture  success  with  Dodo.  Rightly  or  wrongly, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  vituperation  so  violent  could  not  be 
regarded  as  other  than  comic.  If  I  was  a  nursery-gover- 
ness and  a  man-milliner,  and  a  gentleman's  gentleman  it 
was  all  very  sad,  but  I  was  less  overwhelmed  because  I 
was  already  terribly  interested  in  the  Babe,  B.A.  and  not 
at  all  interested  in  the  St.  James's  Budget,  except  as  a 
humorous  publication,  which  the  Babe,  B.A.  tried  to  be, 
too.  And  then  there  were  delightful  plans  ahead;  this 
autumn  Maggie  was  to  come  out  to  Athens  with  me,  and 
we  were  to  go  on  to  Egypt  together,  and  have  a  Tre- 
mendous Time.  .  .  , 


CHAPTER  XIV 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT 


SO  there  was  Athens  again,  with  its  bugles  and  its 
Royal  Babies,  and  its  eternal  Acropolis,  which  cus- 
tom never  staled.  Maggie  jumped  into  the  Hellenic 
attitude  at  once,  adoring  the  adorable,  filling  with  the 
laughter  of  her  serious  appreciation  the  comedy  of  the 
life  there,  enjoying  it  all  enormously,  and  finding  ecstatic 
human  interest  in  Oriental  situations.  One  day  the  M.P. 
for  Megalopolis  appeared  in  Athens,  and  so,  of  course,  I 
asked  him  to  tea  in  the  Grand  Hotel,  and  Maggie  put  in 
some  extra  lessons  in  modern  Greek  with  the  English 
vice-consul,  in  order  that  a  tongue-tied  female  should  not 
mar  the  entertainment.  The  M.P.'s  remarks  were  mostly 
unintelligible  to  her,  and  these  I  translated  back  for  her 
benefit,  and  if  she  could  find  a  phrase  that  fitted  she 
slowly  enunciated  it,  and  if  not  she  said  to  him,  syllable 
by  syllable,  "I  should  like  to  see  your  wife  and  children, 
but  we  are  going  to  Egypt."  All  the  "circles"  in  Athens 
embraced  at  once  her  cordial  and  eager  humanity.  She 
sketched  all  morning,  and  when  I  came  to  the  rendezvous, 
there  would  be  a  dozen  young  Greek  urchins  round  her 
canvas,  to  whom,  as  she  washed  in  a  lucent  sky,  she  made 
careful  and  grammatical  remarks.  .  .  .  She  captivated 
the  heart  of  the  archaeologists,  and  Dr.  Dorpfeld  who  had 
proved  himself  so  fatal  to  the  theories  of  the  British 
School  at  Megalopolis,  addressed  his  most  abstruse  argu- 

303 


304  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

merits  to  her  as  he  announced  that  ''die  Enneakrounos,  ich 
habe  gewiss  gefunden"  when  he  gave  his  out-of-door  lec- 
tures. The  English  Minister,  Sir  Edwin  Egerton,  used 
to  wrap  her  shawl  round  her,  as  she  left  the  Legation 
after  dinner,  saying,  "Now  you  look  like  a  Tanagra 
figure,"  and  the  Queen  asked  her  in  strict  confidence, 
whether  the  English  aristocracy  really  behaved  as  her 
brother  said  they  behaved  in  that  odd  book  called  Dodo. 
The  answer  to  that  was  given  in  a  performance  we  got 
up,  ostensibly  for  the  amusement  of  the  English  gover- 
nesses in  Athens  at  Christmas,  of  the  Duchess  of  Bays- 
water.  Of  course  we  got  it  up  primarily  because  we 
wanted  to  act,  and  then  it  grew  to  awful  proportions. 
The  English  Mediterranean  Fleet  happened  to  come  into 
the  Piraeus  about  then,  and  Admiral  Markham  asked  if 
a  contingent  of  two  hundred  blue-jackets  or  so  might 
stand  at  the  back  of  the  English  governesses.  On  which, 
the  style  of  the  entertainment  had  to  be  recast  altogether, 
and  we  bargained  that,  if  they  came  the  performance 
should  consist  of  two  parts.  The  first  part  should  be 
supplied  by  sailors,  who  would  dance  hornpipes,  and 
sing  songs,  and  the  second  part  should  consist  of  The 
Duchess  of  Baysivater.  That  was  agreed,  and  we  engaged 
a  large  public  hall. 

Then  Regie  Lister  who  was  a  Secretary  of  Legation, 
let  slip  to  the  Crown  Princess  that  we  were  getting  up 
an  entertainment  for  (and  with)  sailors  and  English 
governesses,  and  she,  under  promise  of  discretion  as  re- 
gards her  relatives,  was  allowed  to  be  one  of  the  English 
governesses.  With  truly  Teutonic  perfidiousness,  she 
informed  all  the  Kings  and  Queens  then  in  Athens  what 
was  going  on,  and  just  as  the  curtain  was  about  to  go 
up  for  The  Duchess  of  Bay  swat  er  a  message  came  from 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  305 

the  palace  that  the  entire  host  of  royalties  was  then 
starting  to  attend  it.  And  so  there  was  a  row  of  Kings 
and  Queens  and  ten  rows  of  English  governesses,  and  a 
swarm  of  English  sailors.  But  we  refused  to  cut  out  a 
topical  allusion  to  the  Palace  bugles. 

And  at  precisely  this  point,  the  epoch  of  those  absurd 
theatricals,  the  sparkle  and  comedy  of  Athenian  existence 
was  overshadowed  or  enlightened  for  me  by  the  birth  of 
a  great  friendship.  Regie  Lister  had  the  greatest  genius 
for  friendship  of  any  man  I  ever  met;  no  one,  not  even 
Alfred  Lyttelton,  had  a  finer  gift  or  a  more  irresistible 
charm  for  men  and  women  alike.  The  two,  extraordi- 
narily dissimilar  in  most  respects,  were  identical  in  this, 
that  they  compelled  others  to  love  them,  because  they 
loved  so  magnificently  themselves.  Alfred  Lyttelton, 
for  all  his  exuberant  virility,  had  the  feminine  quality 
of  giving  himself  instead  of  taking,  which  is  what  I  mean 
by  magnificent  love,  and  Regie's  genius  in  friendship 
sprang  from  precisely  the  same  abandonment.  There 
they  diverged  north  and  south,  for  Regie  had  practically 
none  of  the  manliness  that  was  so  characteristic  of  the 
other.  But  he  had  superbly  the  qualities  of  his  defects; 
in  matters  of  intellect,  the  direct  masculine  attack  was 
represented  by  intuition  and  diplomacy  and  extreme 
quickness,  and  in  matters  of  affection  by  a  certain  robust 
tenderness,  quite  devoid  of  sentimentality.  All  mankind, 
whether  male  or  female,  is  compounded  of  both  sexes: 
the  man  without  any  womanly  instincts  would  be  a  mere 
monster;  the  woman  without  any  grit  of  manliness  in 
her,  a  mere  jelly-fish,  and  in  Regie's  nature  the  woman 
had  a  large  share.  One  quality  supposed  to  be  a  defect 
of  women  rather  than  men  he  was  quite  without:  he  had 
no  notion  whatever  of  "spite,"  and  was  incapable  of  tak- 


306  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

ing  revenge  on  anyone  who  had  annoyed  or  crossed  him. 
Most  shining  of  all  among  his  delightful  gifts  was  his 
instinct  of  seeing  the  best  in  everyone.  Wherever  he 
went  in  his  diplomatic  posts,  Athens,  Constantinople, 
Copenhagen,  Rome,  Paris,  or  Tangiers,  he  found,  with- 
out the  least  "setting  to  work"  about  it,  that  there  never 
was  so  heavenly  a  place,  nor  so  delightful  an  entourage. 
At  heart  he  was  really  Parisian;  that  city,  with  its  keen 
kaleidoscopic  gaiety,  its  intellectual  and  artistic  atmos- 
phere, dry  and  defined  as  its  own  air,  suited  him  best, 
but  this  instinct  to  find  everj'one  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact  delightful,  brought  out,  as  was  natural,  all  that 
there  was  delightful  in  them,  and  thus  his  instinct  was 
justified.  He  was  incapable  of  being  bored  for  more 
than  a  couple  of  minutes  together,  and  would  have  found 
something  that  could  be  commuted  into  cheerfulness  in 
the  trials  of  Job.  Whether  he  liked  a  person  or  not,  he 
always  gave  his  best,  not  with  the  idea  of  making  himself 
popular,  but  because  that  was  the  natural  expression  of 
his  temperament.  His  amiability  made  the  ripe  plums 
easily  drop  for  him,  but  when  he  had  determined  to  get 
something  which  did  not  come  off  its  stalk  for  the  wishing, 
he  had  indomitable  perseverance,  and  that  rather  rare 
gift  of  being  able  to  sit  down  and  think  until  a  method 
clarified  itself. 

With  him,  then,  I  struck  up  a  friendship  which  dis- 
pensed with  all  the  preliminaries  of  acquaintanceship: 
there  was  no  gradual  drawing  together  about  it,  it  leaped 
into  being,  and  there  it  remained,  poised  and  effortless. 
Often  during  the  ensuing  years  after  he  had  left  Athens 
and  was  at  his  post  in  some  European  capital,  we  did 
not  meet  for  months  together,  but  when  the  meeting 
came,  relations  were  taken  up  again,  owing  to  some  flame- 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  307 

like  quality  in  him  which  warmed  you  as  soon  as  you  got 
near  him,  without  break  or  sense  of  there  having  been  a 
break.  Morning  by  morning  he  came  down  to  the  mu- 
seum where  I  was  studying  sculpture  with  his  paints  and 
sketching-block,  and  made  the  most  admirable  pictures 
of  some  Greek  head;  we  took  excursions  round  Athens 
up  Hymettus  or  Pentelicus,  we  usually  dined  together 
at  some  house  of  an  evening,  where  he  made  cosmopoli- 
tan diplomatists  act  charades  or  play  some  childish  and 
uproarious  game.  Best  of  all  was  it  to  leave  Athens, 
and  wander  three  or  four  days  at  a  time  in  the  Pelopon- 
nese.  We  cast  pennies  into  the  Styx,  we  lost  our  way 
and  our  mules  and  their  drivers  on  the  slopes  of  Cyllene, 
and  were  rescued  by  a  priest  who  tucked  up  his  skirts, 
and  hurled  huge  stones  at  the  savage  shepherd-dogs;  we 
slept  in  indescribable  inns,  where  were  all  manner  of 
beasts,  we  bathed  in  the  Eurotas,  and  lay  that  night 
among  goats  in  a  shed  on  the  Langarda  Pass,  and  the 
sorriest  surroundings  were  powerless  to  abate  Regie's  en- 
joyment. And  on  one  unique  and  memorable  day  we 
hunted  for  the  temple  at  Bassae  in  a  thick  fog,  and  almost 
despaired  of  finding  it,  when  out  of  the  heart  of  the 
enshrouding  mist  there  came  the  roar  of  a  great  wind  that 
tore  the  fog  into  tatters,  and  lo,  not  a  hundred  yards 
away  was  the  grave  grey  temple.  The  flying  vapours 
vanished,  chased  like  frightened  sheep  along  steaming 
hillsides  and  through  the  valleys  below,  and  all  the 
Peloponnese  swam  into  sight,  from  the  Gulf  of  Corinth 
to  the  western  sea,  and  from  the  west  to  the  bays  of 
the  south,  and  from  the  south  to  the  waters  of  Naup- 
lia.  .  .  .  Did  two  more  ecstatic  pilgrims  ever  behold  the 
shrine  of  Apollo? 


308  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

For  the  next  three  winters  slices  of  Egypt  were  sand- 
wiched between  visits  to  Greece.  I  started  with  Greece, 
went  on  with  Maggie,  or  on  other  occasions  joined  her 
at  Luxor,  and  came  back  to  Greece,  living,  after  Regie's 
departure  for  Constantinople,  at  the  Legation  with  Sir 
Edwin  Egerton,  the  most  hospitable  of  mankind.  But 
the  magic  of  Egypt,  potent  and  compelling  as  it  was,  was 
a  waving  of  a  black  wand  compared  to  the  joyful  spell  of 
Greece.  "All  who  run  may  read;  only  run"  was  the 
Greek  injunction:  "All  who  read  must  run  away"  seemed 
the  equivalent  in  the  Nilotic  incantation.  To  get  under 
the  spell  of  Greece  implied  a  rejuvenation  into  a  world 
that  was  like  dawn  on  dewdrops  and  gave  so  sunny  an 
answer  to  the  "obstinate  questionings"  that  there  was  no 
need  even  to  ask  what  the  riddle  had  been. 

"All  is  beauty, 
And  knowing  this  is  love,  and  love  is  duty, 
What  further  can  be  sought  for  or  declared?" 

That  glittered  from  the  fading  shores  of  Attica,  and  then 
after  a  few  miles  of  sea,  there  arose  the  low  and  sinister 
coast,  and  as  you  began  to  guess  at  the  mystery  of  the 
desert-bounded  land  you  quaked  at  the  conclusion.  There 
was  something  old  and  evil  there  and  as  tired  as  Eccle- 
siastes :  it  preached  Vanitas  Vanitatum  instead  of  singing 
the  sunny  love-spell  of  Greece,  and  while  its  mouth 
mumbled  the  syllables,  its  relentless  hands  reared  the 
pyramids  which  must  stand  for  ever  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  world  as  a  monument  of  unimaginative  construc- 
tion and  lost  labour.  There  too  it  set  the  Sphinx  whose 
totally  blank  and  meaningless  face,  innocent  of  any  riddle 
except  that  of  its  own  soullessness,  defies  the  rising  glory 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  809 

of  the  sun  and  the  moon  of  lovers  to  instil  any  spark  of 
animation  into  its  stony  countenance.  What  monsters 
to  an  Attic  pilgrim  were  these  gods  conceived  not  in  the 
kindly  image  of  humanity  but  as  out  of  some  incestuous 
menagerie!  Here  was  no  deep-bosomed  Hera,  queen  of 
gods  and  men,  for  the  royalty  of  motherhood;  no 
helmeted  Athene  for  the  royalty  of  wisdom;  no  Aphrodite 
for  the  excellence  of  love  sent  her  herald  Eros  to  an- 
nounce her  epiphany  from  the  wine-dark  sea.  The 
Egyptian  artificers  hewed  no  images  of  joy  and  mirth, 
they  set  no  Faun  nor  Satyr  dancing  in  the  twilight,  no 
Hermes  held  the  winds  in  the  flower-like  pinions  of 
his  heels,  or  nursed  the  god  after  whom  the  Bacchantes 
revelled,  with  the  smile  that  so  quivered  on  his  mouth 
that  next  moment  surely  the  vitality  with  which  he 
tingled,  would  break  through  that  momentary  marble 
arrest.  Far  other  were  these  incongruous  composite  di- 
vinities, all  as  dead  as  a  hangman's  noose,  all  incapable 
of  summoning  up  one  quiver  of  a  kindly  mirth.  As  by 
some  disordered  dream  of  a  religious  maniac  the  hawk- 
faced  god  had  a  cobra  for  symbol  of  his  divinity;  a  cow 
or  a  cat  or  a  lion  had  mated  with  a  man  and  the  offspring 
sat  there,  bleak  and  appalling,  to  be  worshipped.  And 
in  matter  of  material,  for  the  glow  of  the  white  Pentelic 
that  holds  the  sunshine  in  solution  within,  even  as  a 
noble  vintage  is  redolent  of  Provengal  summers,  these 
monstrous  forms  were  presented  in  dead  black  basalt,  a 
frozen  opacity  of  ink. 

Into  these  tight-fisted  inexorable  hands  were  given 
the  jail-keys  of  death.  Egypt  was  ever  the  land  of  graves, 
Memento  Mori^  the  sad  gospel  of  its  religion.  A  little 
honey,  a  little  pulse,  blue-glazed  images  of  slaves  who 
might  still  toil  for  their  master  in  that  dim  underworld, 


310  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

images  of  food  in  the  chambers  of  the  dead,  were  all 
that  the  pious  could  provide  for  the  desolate  whimpering 
soul,  feeble  as  a  moth,  that  went  forth  on  its  lonely 
journey  through  dubious  twilight.  The  crowns  and  the 
sceptres,  the  gold  and  precious  stones  that  were  buried 
with  the  kings  were  but  a  mockery  to  them  of  all  that 
they  had  quitted;  the  mightiest  monument  that  Pharaoh 
had  raised  was  no  more  than  a  flickering  beacon  behind 
him  as  he  trod  the  dark  passage,  which  cast  in  front  the 
shadow  of  the  man  that  he  had  been.  The  gigantic  and 
hopeless  art,  bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  fetters  of 
hieratic  tradition  could  do  no  more  than  multiply  mono- 
liths, incredulous  of  its  own  greatness  and  untinged  with 
the  living  colour  of  humanity.  Yet  out  of  this  mere 
piling  up  of  dead  on  dead  there  arose  a  musty  necromantic 
magic,  awful  and  old  and  corrupt,  that  sat  like  a  vulture 
on  the  sandbanks  and  was  wafted,  eternally  fecund, 
down  the  waters  of  the  Nile.  All  the  way  up  to  Luxor, 
where  we  settled  down  for  a  time,  through  the  splendour 
of  noon  and  the  last  ray  of  sunset  that  turns  the  stream 
into  a  sheet  of  patinated  bronze,  there  was  present  that 
underlying  sense  of  woe ;  and  to  this  day  my  nightmares 
are  set  on  the  Nile  in  the  sweet  scent  of  bean  fields 
beneath  the  waving  of  mimosa  and  of  palms,  where,  by 
the  terrible  river  there  crouches  some  abominable  granite 
god. 

I  have  given  a  wrong  notion  of  this  curious  psychic 
horror  if  I  have  represented  it  as  interfering  with  enjoy- 
ment and  interest.  It  lay  couched  and  in  concealment, 
seldom  stirring,  and  belonged  I  suppose  to  that  sub- 
conscious world  which,  somewhere  within  us,  is  absorbed 
in  its  own  constructive  energies,  and  only  rarely  lets  news 
of  itself  rise,  like  a  bubble  through  dark  water,  into  our 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  611 

controlled  and  effective  consciousness.  But  cell  by  cell 
was  stored  with  its  bitter  honey,  and  my  bees  must  have 
been  busy,  for  when  a  few  years  later  I  began  to  write 
a  book  called  The  hfiage  in  the  Sand  I  found  the  combs 
full  arid  ready  for  my  despoiling.  How  such  invention 
as  is  implied  in  writing  a  book,  exercises  itself  in  others, 
I  do  not  know,  but  I  have  a  very  clear  idea  of  my  own 
case.  The  material,  the  stuff  out  of  which  the  threads 
are  woven,  or,  if  you  will,  the  stock-pot  out  of  which  the 
pottage  comes,  has  long  been  simmering  and  stewing  be- 
fore the  planning,  the  conscious  invention  begins.  These 
two  stages,  so  I  take  it,  are  widely  severed  from  each 
other;  the  storing  and  the  stewing  have  long  preceded  this 
rummage  and  inspection  of  what  the  author  wants  for  his 
purpose.  But  there  is,  practically  always,  a  second  pot 
on  the  fire,  subconsciously  stewing,  the  contents  of  which 
concern  him  not  at  all,  while  he  is  exercising  such  culinary 
art  as  may  be  his  over  the  contents  of  the  first.  Thus, 
while  subconsciously  I  was  gathering  and  shredding  into 
this  second  pot,  some  of  these  secret  and  bitter  herbs  of 
Egypt  to  be  used  years  afterwards,  my  conscious  cooking 
powers  were  altogether  absorbed  with  the  stuff  I  had  long 
before  collected  in  Greece.  In  other  words,  I  was  busy 
with  writing  The  Vintage  while  my  subconscious  mind 
was  just  as  busy  on  its  own  ofBce  of  making  ready  for 
The  Image  in  the  Sand.  Every  morning,  and  all  morn- 
ing, as  we  went  up  the  Nile  in  the  post-boat,  I  used  to 
carry  book  and  pen  and  ink  to  some  sequestered  comer 
where  the  sun  beat  full  on  me,  and,  while  the  sandbanks 
and  the  vultures  and  the  wicked  old  spell  of  Egypt  were 
working  on  my  subconscious  mind,  I  exuded  on  to  paper 
what  I  had  captured  of  the  sunnier  spell  of  Greece.  I 
fancy  that  this  must  be  a  mental  process  common  to 


312  OUR  FAIMILY  AFFAIRS 

most  people,  and  that  nobody  writes  of  the  interests  and 
experiences  which  at  the  moment  absorb  him.  They  have 
to  be  kept  and  stored  and  stewed  before  they  are  fit  for 
use;  the  harvest  in  fact  has  long  been  completed  before 
the  grain  is  ground,  or  before  the  baker,  later  still,  is  at 
his  oven. 

Every  winter  then,  for  those  three  years,  and  indeed  for 
one  year  more,  tragic  and  final — I  went  across  to  Egypt 
from  Greece,  firm  in  the  protection  of  the  sunny  gods 
when  I  started,  and  hastening  to  swing  the  incense  again 
when  I  returned.  And  I  must  surely  have  been  inocu- 
lated with  the  poison  of  the  darker  deities,  so  that  for 
two  years  I  was  immune  from  their  attacks,  or  perhaps 
Maggie's  excavations  in  the  temple  of  Mut  in  Kamak 
were  so  thrilling  and  surprising  that  "the  plague  was 
stayed,"  or  perhaps  I  made  some  truce  and  reconciliation 
with  the  hawk-faced  gods  and  the  cats  and  the  baboons, 
or  perhaps  (as  seemed  most  probable  of  all)  I  had  im- 
agined a  vain  thing  when  for  the  first  time  I  thought  that 
the  iron  of  these  malignant  conceptions  had  entered  into 
my  soul,  for  the  early  months  of  the  new  year  in  1895 
and  1896  were  weeks  of  incessant  exhilaration,  the  glory 
of  which  was  this  concession,  given  to  Maggie  by  the 
Ministry  of  Antiquities,  that  she  might  conduct  the  exca- 
vation of  a  temple. 

Did  ever  an  invalid  plan  and  carry  out  so  sumptuous 
an  activity?  She  was  wintering  in  Eg}^pt  for  her  health, 
being  threatened  with  a  crippling  form  of  rheumatism; 
she  was  suffering  also  from  an  internal  malady,  depress- 
ing and  deadly :  a  chill  was  a  serious  thing  for  her,  fatigue 
must  be  avoided,  and  yet  with  the  most  glorious  contempt 
of  bodily  ailments  which  I  have  ever  seen,  she  continued 
to  employ  some  amazing  mental  vitality  that  brushed  dis- 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  81» 

abilities  aside,  and,  while  it  conformed  to  medical  orders, 
crammed  the  minutes  with  such  sowings  and  reapings  as 
the  most  robust  might  envy.  When  I  got  to  Egypt  in 
the  first  of  these  three  years  she  had  already  obtained 
permission  to  excavate  the  temple  of  Mut  in  the  horse- 
shoe lake  at  Kamak,  with  the  proviso  that  the  museum  at 
Gizeh  was  to  claim  anything  it  desired  out  of  the  finds; 
she  had  got  together  sufficient  funds  to  conduct  a  six 
weeks'  exploration  with  a  moderate  staff  of  workers,  and 
there  she  was  with  her  fly-whisk  and  her  white  donkey, 
using  a  dozen  words  of  Arabic  to  the  workers  with  aston- 
ishing effect.  She  had  begun  by  trenching  the  site  diago- 
nally in  order  to  cut  across  any  walls  that  were  covered  by 
the  soil,  and  another  diagonal  soon  gave  the  general 
plan  of  the  unknown  temple.  All  the  local  English 
archseologists  were,  so  to  speak,  at  her  feet,  partly  from 
the  entire  novelty  of  an  English  girl  conducting  an  exca- 
vation of  her  own,  but  more  because  of  her  grateful  and 
enthusiastic  personality,  and  M.  Naville,  who  was  en- 
gaged at  Deir-el-Bahari  across  the  river,  came  and  sat 
like  a  benignant  eagle  on  a  comer  stone,  while  Mr.  New- 
berry deciphered  some  freshly  exposed  inscription.  I  was 
given  a  general  supervision,  with  the  object  of  discover- 
ing the  most  economical  method  of  clearing,  of  arranging 
the  "throws"  of  earth  (so  that  those  going  to  the  chuck- 
ing heap  should  not  use  the  same  path  as  those  retuming 
with  empty  baskets,  a  plan  which  entailed  collisions  and 
much  pleasant  conversation  between  the  workmen  who 
were  going  to  and  fro)  and  with  making  a  plan  to  scale 
of  the  temple.  A  friend  of  Maggie's  kept  an  eye  wide 
open  for  possible  thefts  of  small  objects,  but  the  genius, 
the  organizer,  the  chairman  of  it  all  was  Maggie.  After 
a  morning  there,  she  had  to  get  back  to  Pagnon's  Hotel,^ 


314  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

lunch  quietly  and  rest  afterwards,  but  presently  she 
would  be  out  again,  cantering  on  her  white  donkey  with- 
out fatigue  owing  to  her  admirable  seat,  with  a  tea-basket 
on  the  crupper,  and  Mohammed  the  devoted  donkey-boy 
trotting  behind  with  encouraging  cries  so  that  the  donkey 
should  not  lapse  into  that  jog-trot  which  was  so  bad  for 
tea-things.  At  sunset,  the  work  was  over,  and  we  made 
our  leisurely  way  back  to  the  hotel.  Maggie  rested  a 
tired  body  before  dinner,  but  exercised  an  indefatigible 
mind,  working  at  what  was  familiarly  known  as  "her 
philosophy,"  which  eventually  took  shape  in  her  book. 
The  Venture  of  Rational  Faith^  or  scribbling  at  one  of 
the  charming  animal  stories,  which  she  published  later 
'under  the  title  of  Subject  to  Vanity.  Then  after  dinner, 
the  old  habits  reasserted  themselves  and  we  played  games 
with  pencil  and  paper,  producing  poetical  answers  to 
preposterous  questions  or  rooking  each  other  at  picquet. 
Each  Saturday,  she  jingled  out  with  money-bags  to  the 
temple  of  Mut,  and  paid  her  workmen,  while  her  native 
overseer  checked  the  tale  of  piastres,  and  waved  the  whisk 
to  keep  the  flies  off  his  mistress. 

Sometimes  there  were  days  off,  when  one  of  the  three 
was  left  in  charge,  and  the  two  others  went  far  through 
the  fertile  land,  or  ferrying  across  the  Nile,  spent  the  day 
with  M.  Naville  at  Deir-el-Bahari  to  see  what  fresh 
sculptured  wall  had  been  reclaimed  from  the  blown  sand 
of  the  desert,  showing  the  pictured  ivory  and  gold  which 
the  expedition  of  Queen  Hatasoo  had  brought  back  from 
the  mysterious  land  of  Punt ;  or  we  crawled  dustily  into 
some  newly  discovered  malodorous  tomb  in  the  valley 
where  the  kings  of  Egypt  were  buried,  or  visited  Professor 
Petrie  at  the  Ramesseum  and  exchanged  the  news  of  fresh 
finds.    Sometimes  I  took  a  holiday  from  the  remote  and 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  315 

swarming  past,  and  with  a  horse  in  place  of  the  demurer 
donkey,  went  far  out  into  the  desert  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Nile.  Pebbles  and  soft  sand,  hard  sand  and  rocks 
succeeded  each  other  in  slope  and  level,  and  the  horse 
whinnied  as  he  sniffed  the  utter  emptiness  of  the  un- 
breathed  air.  One  kite  hung,  a  remote  speck  in  the  brazen 
sky,  and  the  silence  and  the  solitude  wove  the  unutterable 
spell  of  the  desert.  There,  out  of  sight  of  all  that  makes 
the  planet  habitable,  your  horse  alone  made  the  link  with 
the  ephemeral  living  world;  all  else  was  as  it  had  been 
through  uncounted  centuries,  and  as  it  would  remain 
for  centuries  to  come,  until  the  spinning  earth  grew  still. 
In  the  desert  the  past  and  the  future  are  one,  and  the 
present,  dwindled  to  a  microscopical  point,  is  but  a 
shadow  of  time  in  the  timeless  circle  of  eternity.  Old 
wicked  Egypt  was  no  more  than  that ;  the  dynasties  were 
whisked  away  like  an  unquiet  fly,  that  persists  for  a 
little,  but  not  for  long. 

Luxor  would  be  full  of  southerly-going  dahabeahs  and 
English  tourists  during  this  month  of  January,  and  I 
can  see  Maggie  waving  her  long  fine-fingered  hands  in 
impotent  despair,  as  I  brought  her  an  invitation  from 
some  friend  that  she  and  I  would  dine  on  one  of  these 
dahabeahs  to-night  or  next  night  or  the  night  after. 
"How  am  I  to  get  on  with  my  work,"  exclaimed  this  out- 
raged invalid,  "with  all  these  interruptions'?  Won't  it 
do,  if  we  ask  them  to  tea  at  the  temple?"  That  certainly 
usually  "did"  quite  well,  for  while  Maggie  was  making 
tea,  the  cry  of  "Antica!"  would  arise  from  the  diggers, 
and  she  popped  the  lid  on  the  teapot,  and  we  turned  to 
see  what  had  been  unearthed.  Once  it  was  the  statue  of 
the  Rameses  of  the  Exodus,  which  would  tremendously 
excite  the  visitor,  but  left  us  cold,  for  he  was  already 


316  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

plentifully  represented.  Or  it  might  be  a  scribe  of  the 
eighteenth  dynasty  whom  to-day  you  may  see  in  the 
museum  at  Gizeh,  and  better  even  than  that  was  a  superb 
Saite  head,  such  as  I  may  behold  at  this  moment  if  I 
raise  my  eyes  from  the  page,  or  best  of  all  it  was  the 
image  of  Sen-mut  himself,  to  see  which,  again,  you  must 
go  to  Gizeh.  That  was  the  crown  and  culmination  of 
the  digging  and  worthy  of  an  archseological  digression. 
.  Sen-mut,  we  knew,  was  the  architect  of  our  temple,  and 
of  the  temple  of  Deir-el-Bahari  across  the  river,  and  the 
mysterious  thing  in  connection  with  him  was  that  wher- 
ever his  name  and  his  deeds  appeared  in  hieroglyphic 
inscriptions  they  had  always  been  defaced,  and  an  in- 
scription about  King  Thothmes  III,  nephew  and  successor 
of  Queen  Hatasoo,  to  whose  reign  the  activities  of  Sen- 
mut  belonged  had  been  superimposed.  Sometimes  the 
deletion  was  not  quite  thorough  and  you  could  read  Sen- 
mut's  name  below  some  dull  chronicle  of  King  Thothmes. 
What  the  reason  for  these  erasures  had  been  was  hitherto 
only  conjecture:  now,  on  the  close  of  this  bright  January 
afternoon  the  riddle  was  solved,  and  we  found  ourselves 
the  accidental  recoverers  of  a  scandal  nearly  four  thou- 
sand years  old.  For  Sen-mut  was  but  a  common  man, 
"not  mentioned  in  writing"  (i.e.  with  no  ancestral  rec- 
ords), and  he  speaking  from  the  inscription  on  the  back 
of  this  statue  of  himself  which  he  had  dedicated  told  us 
that,  "I  filled  the  heart  of  the  Queen  (Hatasoo)  in  very 
truth  gaining  the  heart  of  my  mistress  daily  .  .  .  and  the 
mistress  of  the  two  lands  (Upper  and  Lower  Egypt)  was 
pleased  with  that  which  came  forth  from  my  mouth,  the 
Priest  of  Truth,  Sen-mut.  I  knew  her  comings  in  the 
Royal  house,  and  was  beloved  of  the  ruler ^^ 

Here  then  was  the  reason  for  all  these  erasures:  there 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  317 

had  been  a  scandal  about  the  intimacy  between  this  "com- 
mon man"  and  the  Queen;  so,  when  she  died,  and  her 
nephew  succeeded,  he  caused  all  mention  of  Sen-mut  to 
be  erased,  and  covered  up  the  blank  spaces  with  majestic 
records  of  his  own  achievements.  It  was  his  design  to 
destroy  all  evidence  of  this  disreputable  or  at  least  un- 
dignified affair,  and  hammer  and  chisel,  at  his  order,  were 
busy  to  delete  all  hint  of  Aunt  Hatasoo's  indiscretions. 
Pious  King  Thothmes  was  all  but  successful  in  this  piece 
of  family  pride:  only  just  one  record  escaped  his  erasing 
hand.  But  now,  four  thousand  years  later,  Maggie  dug 
up  that  solitary  omission. 

I  know  that  there  must  have  been  clouds  on  these 
halcyon  days  of  winter,  but  they  passed  and  prevailing 
sunlight  was  dominant  again.  Once  Maggie  got  a  chill 
as  she  lingered  by  the  horse-shoe  lake,  and  developed  a 
congestion  of  the  lungs,  but  when  she  was  allowed  to 
leave  her  bed  again  and  go  out,  she  was  carried  in  a  sort 
of  litter,  by  her  own  express  decree,  to  the  beloved  exca- 
vation again,  and  made  a  delighted  progress  round  the 
fresh  clearing,  ordering  that  some  mason  must  be  at  once 
employed  in  piecing  together  the  huge  lion-headed  statues 
which  had  been  discovered  in  the  fore-court  of  the  temple, 
and  in  setting  them  in  place  again.  She  was  more  dubious 
about  certain  abominable  baboons  that  crouched  in  a 
small  chamber  within  the  temple,  whose  awful  ugliness 
seemed  better  left  alone.  .  .  .  Then  over  us  both  passed 
the  cloud  of  slightly  disquieting  letters  from  my  mother. 
My  father  was  overtired,  and  Would  go  on  working :  he 
had  attacks  of  breathlessness  if  he  rode,  a  sense  of  op- 
pression on  his  chest  that  was  not  mitigated  by  his  remedy 
of  thumping  it.  But  no  one,  least  of  all  the  sufferer,  took 
these  things  at  all  seriously,     Maggie  got   better,    my 


318  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

father  received  no  alarming  report  from  his  doctor,  and 
my  mother,  as  these  clouds  seemed  to  melt,  added  them 
to  her  general  list  of  the  workings  of  "unreasonable  fear," 
that  ghostly  enemy  of  hers,  whom  she  was  for  ever  com- 
bating and  holding  at  arm's  length,  but  never  quite 
slaying. 

Arthur,  during  these  Grseco-Egyptian  years,  had  slid 
into  the  groove  of  a  career;  he  was  a  house-master  at 
Eton,  prosperous  and  popular,  though  from  time  to  time 
his  own  cloud  beset  him,  and  out  of  it  he  would  an- 
nounce that  the  burden  of  his  work  was  quite  intolerable, 
and  that  he  could  not  possibly  stand  it  for  another  term. 
But  this  was  a  fruitful  Jeremiad,  for  it  relieved  his  mind, 
and  he  buckled  to  with  renewed  energy  and  that  amazing 
gift  of  getting  through  a  task  more  quickly  than  anybody 
else  could  have  done  it,  without  the  slightest  loss  of  thor- 
oughness, and  he  added  to  the  work  that  was  incident  to 
his  profession  an  immense  literary  activity  of  his  own, 
producing  several  volumes  of  verse,  and  experimentaliz- 
ing in  those  meditative  essays  in  which  before  long  he 
found  his  own  particular  metier.  Hugh,  in  the  same  way, 
after  studying  at  Llandaff  under  Dean  Vaughan,  had 
taken  orders  in  the  English  Church  and  was  attached  to 
the  Eton  Mission  at  Hackney  Wick,  so  that  of  the  three 
sons  I  was  the  only  one  who  had  not  settled  down  to  any 
career.  By  this  time  archseology,  as  a  scholastic  profes- 
sion, was  already  closed  to  me,  for  Cambridge  could  not 
go  on  giving  me  grants  indefinitely,  and  in  order  to  crown 
my  days  of  classical  learning  with  a  final  failure,  King's 
had  not  decorated  with  a  fellowship  either  the  work  I 
sent  in  on  the  Roman  occupation  of  Chester,  or  on  certain 
aspects  of  the  cult  of  Asclepios.  So,  in  deference  to  my 
father's  wishes,  I  took  the  first  step  towards  getting  a 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  311) 

post  in  the  Education  OfBce,  collected  and  sent  in  testi- 
monials, and  craved  employment  there  as  an  inspector 
or  examiner,  I  forget  which.  This  regularized  matters: 
that  was  a  respectable  emplojinent,  and  by  sending  in 
those  testimonials  I  was  doing  my  best  to  be  respectably 
employed,  and  pending  appointment  I  could  go  on  writ- 
ing, thus  treading  the  path  that  by  now  I  fully  meant  to 
pursue.  At  no  time  was  it  definitely  agreed  that  I  should 
become  anything  so  irregular  as  a  writer  of  novels,  and 
I  suppose  that  if  I  had  been  appointed  to  a  post  in  the 
Education  Office,  I  should  have  taken  it  up.  But  those 
in  whose  hands  the  appointment  rested  thought  that  the 
author  of  Dodo  would  be  a  very  indifferent  educator,  in 
spite  of  these  brilliant  panegyrics  from  his  tutors,  and 
for  aught  I  know  those  testimonials  are  dustily  filed  there 
still. 

But  neither  Arthur  nor  Hugh  thought  of  their  present 
vocations  in  their  present  form  as  their  lives'  work; 
Arthur,  at  any  rate,  had  not  the  slightest  intention,  as 
events  proved,  of  plucking  the  rewards  which  his  pro- 
fession as  schoolmaster  was  soon  to  offer  him,  and  when 
headmasterships  came  within  his  reach  he  did  not  put  his 
hand  out  to  them.  Hugh's  case  was  only  a  little  differ- 
ent; the  direct  service  of  God  was  now  his  choice  and 
his  passion,  but  as  evolution  of  that  progressed  in  him,  it 
took  him  out  of  the  English  Church  altogether.  No  one 
ever  questioned  that  his  joining  the  Roman  communion 
and  taking  orders  there  was  anything  but  a  matter  of  ir- 
resistible conviction  with  him,  but  what  would  have  hap- 
pened had  that  conviction  taken  hold  on  him  before  my 
father's  death  it  is  impossible  to  say.  I  cannot  imagine 
any  human  relation,  any  pietas  restraining  Hugh  when  he 
had  the  firm  belief  that  it  was  by  divine  guidance  that 


320  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

he  so  acted :  on  the  other  hand  I  cannot  imagine  what  the 
effect  on  my  father  would  have  been;  whether  he  could 
have  beaten  down  his  own  will  in  the  matter,  as  my 
mother  did,  and  have  accepted  this  without  reserve  at 
all,  or  whether  it  would  have  been  to  him,  as  the  death 
of  Martin  had  been,  an  event  unadjustable,  unbridgable, 
unintelligible,  a  blow  without  reason,  to  be  submitted  to 
in  a  silence  which,  had  it  been  broken,  must  have  been  re- 
solved into  bewildered  protest. 

Apart  from  their  present  professions  both  Arthur  and 
Hugh  were  moving  towards  the  pursuit,  that  of  author- 
ship, which  was  soon  to  take  at  least  equal  rank  with  their 
other  work.  Within  ten  years  it  was  as  an  essayist,  a 
writer  of  delicate  meditative  prose  that  Arthur  was  most 
widely  known,  and  to  this  he  devoted  the  flower  of  his 
energy,  while  Hugh  served  his  Church  not  as  a  parish 
priest,  but  as  preacher  and  as  writer  of  propagandist 
novels,  novels  with  the  purpose  of  showing  the  dealings 
of  God  through  His  Church.  As  works  of  art  his  sermons 
far  transcended  his  books,  an  opinion  which  no  one  I  think 
who  ever  listened  to  that  tumultuous  eloquence  could 
doubt.  They  carried  his  untrammelled  message;  while 
he  preached,  he  could  say  with  supreme  instinctive  art  all 
that  in  novel-writing  he  had  more  indirectly  to  convey: 
his  sermons  had  an  overwhelming  sincerity  which  made 
the  delivery  of  them  flawless  and  flame-like.  When 
he  wrote  he  was  never  quite  so  inspired :  the  message  was 
the  same,  but  it  had  to  be  wrapt  about  with  the  allegory 
of  ordinary  life,  he  had  to  convey  it  in  terms  of  country 
houses  or  historical  episode,  and  the  sermon  which  was 
the  underlying  intention  was  often  a  handicap  to  the  art 
of  story- telling.     But  it  was  towards  his  books  that  his 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  821 

inclination  tended;  his  joy  of  achievement  lay  in  the 
written,  not  in  the  spoken  word. 

Then  came  the  closing  summer  of  this  period,  after 
which  the  whole  stage  and  manner  of  life  was  altered 
altogether.  That  year  I  had  stayed  late  in  the  south, 
going  on  from  Athens  to  Capri,  and  laying  the  foundation 
then  of  that  Italian  castle  of  dreams,  which  was  after- 
wards to  take  a  more  solid  form.  Maggie  had  supple- 
mented Egypt  with  a  cure  at  Aix-les-Bains,  but  in  August 
we  were  all  together  again  at  Addington,  and  once  more, 
as  before  Nellie's  death,  and  never  since  then,  there  were 
hundreds  of  small  cones  on  the  cedar  that  scattered  the 
sulphur-like  powder.  Arthur  came  there  before  he  went 
to  Scotland,  Hugh  had  a  holiday  release  from  the  Eton 
mission,  Maggie  was  established  there  deep  in  the  colla- 
tion of  the  results  from  the  digging  at  Luxor.  Soon  my 
father  and  mother  were  to  start  on  a  tour  through  Ire- 
land, and  when  September  saw  their  departure,  Maggie 
and  I  stayed  on  for  a  little  and  then  drifted  off  on  differ- 
ent visits.  We  were  all  free  to  stop  at  home  if  we  liked, 
and  ask  friends  there;  Addington  was  just  an  ark  for  any 
wandering  family  doves,  picnicky  as  my  mother  said,  but 
there  it  was.  .  .  Maggie  and  I  saw  my  father  and  mother 
off,  and  as  from  my  first  remembered  days  and  ever  after- 
wards when  he  wished  "good  night"  or  "good  bye,"  he 
kissed  me,  and  said,  "God  bless  you,  and  make  you  a  good 
boy  always."  Then,  after  he  got  into  the  carriage,  he 
waved  his  hands  with  some  affectionate  and  despairing 
gesture,  saying,  "I  can't  bear  leaving  you  nice  people 
here,"  and  the  carriage  turned,  and  went  up  the  slope  in 
front  of  the  house.  A  very  few  days  afterwards,  Maggie 
and  I  went  off  on  our  ways,  leaving  Beth  at  the  front 
door,  saying,  "Eh,  pray-a-do  come  back  soon." 


322  OUR  FAMILY  AFFAIRS 

I  had  trysted  with  a  friend  to  spend  a  few  days-  at  Ad- 
dington  early  in  October,  and  arrived  there  to  find  a 
letter  from  him  that  he  was  prevented,  and  I  was  in  two 
minds  as  to  whether  to  stop  here  alone,  or  go  off  on 
some  other  visit  for  the  Sunday.  That  scarcely  seemed 
worth  while,  for  I  had  learned  that  my  father  and  mother 
were  leaving  Ireland  that  day,  and  would  spend  the  Sun- 
day with  Mr.  Gladstone  at  Hawarden.  The  Irish  tour 
therefore  was  over,  and  they  would  be  back  on  Monday. 
Beth  and  I  talked  about  it,  and  she  said,  "Nay,  don't  you 
go  away  to-day,  you  be  here  for  when  your  Papa  and 
Mamma  get  back.    Have  a  quiet  Sunday,  you  and  me." 

It  was  arranged  so:  and  after  lunch  on  Sunday  I  went 
out  for  a  long  walk  through  the  myriad  paths  of  the  Park, 
where  the  beeches  were  russeting  and  the  squirrels  gather- 
ing the  nuts,  and  came  home  in  time  to  have  tea  with 
Beth.  There  was  a  telegram  for  me  on  the  hall-table,  and 
glancing  at  the  sender's  name  first  I  saw  it  was  from  Mrs. 
Gladstone. 

"Your  father  passed  over  quite  peacefully  this  morn- 
ing," it  said.     "Can  you  come  with  Maggie?" 

I  did  not  comprehend  at  first  what  it  meant.  My 
father  was  a  very  bad  sailor,  and  it  was  quite  possible 
that  Mrs.  Gladstone  had  merely  telegraphed  the  little 
news  that  he  was  comfortably  back  in  England.  For  one 
or  two  or  three  long  seconds  which  seemed  like  hours, 
I  tried  to  think  that  this  was  what  she  meant.  But  then 
my  father  had  crossed  not  "this  morning"  but  on  Friday : 
and  why  should  I  "come  with  Maggie"  ?  I  suppose  that 
the  comprehension  of  the  real  meaning  of  this  message 
was  only  a  matter  of  a  moment,  and  I  think  the  envelope 
of  the  telegram  was  scarcely  crumpled  up  in  my  hand  be- 
fore I  knew.    Just  then,  Beth,  having  seen  my  entry  from 


ATHENS  AND  EGYPT  320 

the  window  of  her  room,  came  down  to  tell  me  that  she 
had  got  tea  ready.  And  she  saw  that  something  had  hap- 
pened, for  her  hands  made  a  «^uivering  motion,  and  then 
were  clasped. 

"Is  there  any  trouble?"  she  asked. 

I  could  get  up  to  London  that  night,  but  not  to  Chester. 
I  slept  in  the  Euston  Hotel  and  went  on  by  an  early  train 
next  morning. 

My  father  and  mother  had  arrived  at  Hawarden  on 
Saturday:  he  was  very  well  and  in  tremendously  good 
spirits,  and  sat  up  late  that  night  talking  with  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. They  had  all  gone  to  early  communion  on  Sun- 
day morning,  returned  for  breakfast,  and  walked  again 
to  church  for  the  eleven  o'clock  service.  Mrs.  Gladstone 
and  they  were  in  a  pew  together,  and  during  the  Confes- 
sion, my  father  sank  back  from  his  upright  kneeling,  and 
did  no  more  than  sigh.  .  .  .  He  bowed  himself  before 
his  Lord,  as  he  met  Him  face  to  face.  .  .  . 


INDEX 


Addington,  Easter  holidays  at, 
179 
last  family  gathering  at,  321 
liberty  and  leisure  at,  251 
non-ecclesiastical     ritual     at, 

102 
Sunday  routine  at,  183 
Aix-les-Bains,   Maggie  Benson 

at,  321 
Algeria,  a  tour  in,  276 
Algiers,  visits  to,  254,  276 
"American     nouns"    and    how 

played,  93 
Anderson,  Mary,  a  tribute  to, 

235 
author's  meeting  with,  235 
Archaeological      researches      in 
Greece  and  Egypt,  et  seq.^ 
286 
studies  at  Cambridge,  255 
Athens,  a  representation  of  the 
Duchess  of  Bays  water  at, 
301 
author  in,  279,  303 
royalty   at   a  theatrical   per- 
formance in,  304. 
Athleticism,  benefits  of,  149 

Babe,  B.A.,  The,  301,  302 
Bambridge,  Mr.,  as  pianist,  145 
his  part  in  a  performance  of 


Haydn's    Toy    Symphony, 
201 
Beaconsfield,        Lord,        offers 
Bishopric  of  Truro  to  au- 
thor's father,  62 
Beesly,  A.  H.,  classics  master 
at  Marlborough,   155 
obiter  dicta  of,  160 
Benson,     Arthur     Christopher, 
(brother),  22 
a  mystical  "Chapter"  and  its 

warden,  99 
a  nursery  reminiscence  of,  25 
and  his  brother  Hugh,  128 
as  actor:  a  hilarious  kitchen- 
maid,  177 
as  author,  178,  320 
as  butterfly  collector,  95 
at  Eton,  87,  123,  251 
contributes  a  poem  to  Cam- 
bridge Fortnightly,  231 
gains  an  Eton  scholarship  at 

King's,  126 
holiday  activities  of,  92 
house-master  at  Eton,  318 
piscatorial  exploits  of,  54 
schooldays  at  East  Sheen,  30 
Benson,  E.  P.,  a  fellowship  ex- 
amination at  Eton,   114 
a     first     in     the     Classical 
Tripos,  245 


325 


326 


INDEX 


Benson,  E.  F. — 

a  fit  of  demoniacal  posses- 
sion, 59 

a  (neglected)  untrained  fac- 
ulty for  visualizing,  143 

a  ride  with  Gladstone,  271 

a  squirrel  at  prayers,  23 

a  trip  to  Switzerland,  129 

an  attack  of  jaundice,  209 

an  instance  of  his  fatal  habit 
of  inversion,  28 

and  his  brother  Hugh, 
128 

and  the  food  question  at 
school,  83 

applies  for  post  in  Education 
Office,  319 

archaeological  studies  at 
Cambridge :  an  inspiring 
tutor,  255 

at,  Marlborough,  137,  196 

attends  children's  parties  at 
White  Lodge,  Richmond 
Park,  86 

"Benson's  lies,"  86  et  seq. 

"Beth"  on  his  want  of  tact, 
107 

birth  of,  13 

birthday  celebrations  at 
Rugby,  32 

Bishop  Wordsworth's  gift  to, 

52 

boredom  of  Sundays  at  Ad- 
dington,  183 

botanical  studies  in  Corn- 
wall, 64 

butterfly  and  moth  collect- 
ing, 146 


Benson,  E.  F. — 

Chester,  archaeological  ex- 
ploration at,  266 

childhood  days:  impressions 
of,  13  et  seq. 

climbs  the  Matterhorn,  241 

compulsory  study  in  Swit- 
zerland, 135 

conducts  Haydn's  Toy  Sym- 
phony, 201 

confirmation  at  Marlborough, 
163 

Cornwall,  a  new  home  in, 
62  et  seq. 

curricula  at  Lincoln,  40 

cycles  with  "O.  B.,"  222 

death  of  his  brother  Martin, 

78 
death    of    his    sister    Nellie, 

252 
disquieting   letters    from  his 

mother,  252,  317 
Dodo,  publication  of,  292 
edits   The  Marlburian,   194 
Empress       Frederick       and, 

284 
enjoyments   during   a   foggy 

Christmas,  175 
excavations    at    Megalopolis, 

288 
fails  in  a  scholarship  exam- 
ination,  125 
father  appointed  Archbishop 

of  Canterbury,  163 
first  view  of  the  Parthenon, 

279    ^ 
first  visit  to  Crystal  Palace, 

111 


INDEX 


827 


Benson,  E.  F. — 

friendship  with  Regie  Lister, 

305  et  seq. 

games  and  school  matches  at 
Marlborough,  203 

Greece,  the  spell  of,  308 

hide-and-seek  at  Lincoln,  35 

his  father,  13,  42,  62,  102 
{see  also  Benson,  Edward 
White) 

his  mother,  18  et  seq.,  27, 
29,  40,  58,  61,  102,  106 
{see  also  Benson,  Mrs.) 

holidays  in  the  Lake  Dis- 
trict, 209 

hoop-bowling  at  Marl- 
borough, 200 

in  Algiers,  254,  276,  277 

in  Athens,  279  et  seq.,  303 
et  seq. 

in  Egypt,  254 

influence  of  A.  H.  Beesly  on, 
155  et  seq. 

journeys  to  Truro  for  open- 
ing of  Cathedral,  235 

lacks  effective  ambition,   123 

Lambeth  and  Addington,  163 
et  seq. 

lean  years  at  school,  108  et 
seq. 

learns  to  swim,  56 

liberty  and  leisure  at  Ad- 
dington, 251 

Lincoln,  reminiscences  of,  52 
et  seq. 

love  of  music,  58,  68,  112, 
152 

lure  of  the  mountains,  130 


Benson,  E.  F. — 

meets        Mary        Anderson, 

235 

Mrs.  Gladstone's  telegram 
announcing  death  of  his 
father,  322 

natural  history  studies  of, 
65,  66,  96 

parental  encouragement  of 
hobbies,  57 

poetical  efforts  of,  93,  121 

Pontresina,  a  trip  to,  and  his 
brother  Hugh,  263 

private  schooldays,  and  holi- 
days, 80  et  seq. 

Reeve,  the  Rev.  J.  A.,  a  pen 
picture  of,  73 

revisits  Marlborough,  235 

Rubicon,  The,  published,  and 
adverse  critiques,  296  et 
seq. 

scholarships  at  King's,  230, 
263 

schooldays  at  East  Sheen, 
80,  108,  114 

schoolfellows  expelled,  89 

"Sieges — the  most  dangerous 
game  since  the  world  be- 
gan/' 39 

Sketches  from  Marlborough, 
publication  of,  232 

Sundays  at  Lincoln  and  at 
Addington,  46,   183 

Swiss  mountain-climbing,  41 
et  seq. 

the  charm  of  the  sea,  56 

the  passing-bell  at  Marl- 
borough, 209 


328 


INDEX 


Benson,  E.  F.— 

the  tragedy  of  a  stickleback, 
67 

tours  Normandy  and  Brit- 
tany, 244 

Turkish  delight,  midnight 
revels,  and  the  sequel,  115 
et  seq. 

Wellington  and  the  begin- 
ning, 13  ^/  seq. 

widening  horizons  of,  147  et 
seq. 

wins    a    foundation    scholar- 
ship, 145 
Benson,    Edward    White    (fa- 
ther), a  wet  holiday  in  the 
Lake  District,  209 

accompanies  author  to  Marl- 
borough, 137 

Algerian  tours  of,  254,  276, 
277 

and  his  son  Hugh,  127 

and  Robert  Browning,  237 

and  the  erection  of  Truro 
Cathedral,  101 

and  the  Lincoln  judgment, 
250,  253 

appointed  Bishop  of  Truro, 
62 

as  picture-harvger,  25 

becomes  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury,  163 

Chancellor  of  Lincoln,  32 

death  of  his  eldest  son,  78 

dinner  parties  at  Lambeth 
Palace,  237 

Easter  visits  to  Florence, 
181 


Benson,  Edward  White  (fa- 
ther)— 

frequent  fits  of  depression, 
103,  105,  180 

headmaster  of  Wellington 
College,  13 

his  death  at  Hawarden 
Church,  322 

his  dislike  of  tobacco,  238 

his  sternness,  and  the  cause, 

403 
holiday    "leisure"    of,     132, 

133,  210,  278 
last  farewell  to  his  children, 

321 
love  of  the  classics,  181 
Press  reviews  of  The  Rubi- 
con, and,  300 
Queen  Victoria  and,  277 
relentless  Sundays  of,  183 
tour  through  Ireland,  321 
visits  Carthage,  278 
Benson,    Maggie    (sister),    22, 

25,  54,  127,  178,  275 
conducts    excavations    of    a 

Karnak  temple,  312,  315 
develops    congestion    of    the 

lungs  in  Egypt,  317 
guinea-pig  rearing  by,  93 
her     Venture     of     Rational 

Faith,  314 
ill-health  of,  312 
in  Athens,  303 
prizes  at  Truro  High  School, 

127 
publishes  Subject  to  Vanity, 

314 
researches  in  Chemistry,  94 


INDEX 


829 


Benson,  Maggie   (sister) 

trips     to     Algiers     and     to 
Egypt,  254,  276 
Benson   Martin    (brother),   22, 
23»  25,  30 

at  Winchester,   124 

death  of,  78 

precocity    of,   75 
Benson,     Mrs.      (mother),     a 
stanza  by,  94 

and  her  children,  40,  106, 
167 

at  Addington,  179 

death  of,  254 

death  of  her  daughter  Nellie, 
252 

fear  as  her  enemy,  173,  318 

friendship  with  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, 165 

her  subscriptions  as  "honor- 
ary member,"  99,  100 

how  she  whiled  away  a  wet 
afternoon,  212 

informs  author  of  the  Dodo 
"boom,"  294 

letters  to  "Beth"  on  illness 
and  death  of  her  son  Mar- 
tin, 76,  77 

religious  instincts  of,  78,  102, 
168,  175 

smokes  a  pipe  on  the  Alps, 
240 
Benson,  Nellie  (sister),  22,  65, 
98,  99,  251 

an  article  in  Temple  Bar  by, 
177 

an  attack  of  pleurodynia,  209 

and  her  father,  105 


Benson,  Nellie  (sister) 

ascends  the  Zienal  Rothhorn, 

243 

at  Truro  High  School,   126 

Bishop  Wordsworth  and,  52 

death  of,  252 

distributes    prizes    at    Marl- 
borough, 206 
Benson,   Robert   Hugh   (broth- 
er),   a    mountain    climb — 
and  the  sequel,  264 

a  play  by,  177 

as   henchman   to   a   mystical 
"Chapter,"  99 

as  preacher,  320 

at  Cambridge,  250 

attached    to    Eton    Mission, 
Hackney  Wick,  318 

"Beth"  and,  211 

childish  piety  of,  101 

early  journalistic  efforts  of, 

93 
family  caricatures  by,  210 
his  father  and,  127 
joins  the  Roman  church,  102, 

319 
lays  a  stone  for  erection  of 

Truro  Cathedral,  101 
propagandist  novels  by,  320 
skating  in  a  fog,   176 
studies  at  Llandaff,  318 
takes  orders,  102 
wins  a  scholarship  at  Eton, 
210 
Berne,  a  day  and  night  at,  129 
"Beth"     {see     Cooper,     Eliza- 
beth) 
Bird's-nesting  in  Cornwall,  65 


330 


INDEX 


Biskra,  a  Royal  bereavement: 
news  received  at,  277 

Bosanquet,  R.  Carr,  226 

Bramston,   Miss,  as  authoress, 
41,  42 
in  Cornwall,  76 

Braun,  Miss,  75 

"Brewing"  at  Marlborough : 
function  described,  140 

Browning,    Oscar,    45,    221    et 
seq. 
contributes  a  poem  to  Cam- 
bridge Fortnightly,  231 
his  At-Homes  at  Cambridge, 
224 

Browning,  Robert,  author's 
meeting  with,  237 

Bubb,  Mr.,  Clerk  of  Works  of 
Truro  Cathedral,  101 

Burton,  Willie,  60,  61 

Butterflies  and  moths,  holiday 
collection  of,  95,  146 

Calverley,  Charles  Stuart,  259 

Cambridge  Fortnightly,  the, 
232 

Cambridge  University :  author 
at,  213  et  seq. 
King's  College,  213 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of  {see 
Benson,  Edward  White) 

Capri,  a  visit  to,  321 

Carter,  Mrs.,  organist  of  Ken- 
wyn  Church:  a  boyish 
romance,  68 

Carthage,  a  visit  to,  278 

Cathedral,  the  first  post- 
Reformation,  100 


"Chapter,"  a  mystical,  99 

Chemistry,  holiday  researches 
in,  94 

Chester,  archaeological  research- 
es at,  267 

"Chitchat"  literary  society,  226 

Clarence,  Duke  of,  and  "O.  B.," 
death  of,  222,  276 

Constantine,  Crown  Prince  of 
Greece  (afterwards  King 
"Tino"),  283 

Cooper,     Elizabeth     ("Beth"), 
15,  18,  22,  33,  36,  38,  42, 
74,     96,     107,     128,   321, 
322 
and  Hugh  Benson,  18,  127 
and  the  Archbishop,  221 
games  at  Addington,  251 
her   love   for   Mrs.   Benson, 

211 
Mrs.     Benson's     letter     an- 
nouncing illness  and  death 
of  Martin,  77,  78 

Copeland,  May,  60 

Cornwall,  the  charms  of,  62 

Crawford,  Lady,  entertains 
Archbishop  and  Mrs.  Ben- 
son  180 

Crystal  Palace,  the,  first  visit 
to.  111 

Cunningham,  Dr.,  a  story  of, 
228 

Daily  Chronicle,  the,  an  un- 
favourable review  of  The 
Rubicon  in,  299 

Decemviri  Debating  Society, 
the,  229 


INDEX 


881 


Deir-el-Bahari,       archaeological 

explorations  at,  310,  314 
Delphi,  French  excavations  at, 

289 
Dickinson,  G.  Lowes,  231 
Dodo,  Lucas  Malet's  frank  let- 
ters on,  291 
publication  of,  292 
read  by  Mrs.  Benson  and  by 

Henry  James,  272 
the  infancy  of,  178 
Dorpfeld,  Dr.,  and  Miss  Mag- 
gie Benson,  303 
and  the  fourth  century  Greek 
theatres,  288 
Duchess  of  Bayswater,  a  repre- 
sentation   of,    in    Athens, 
304 

Easedale  Rectory,  a  wet  holi- 
day in,  209 

East  Sheen,  author's  schooldays 
at,  80  et  seq. 

Edgar,     Mr.,     headmaster     of 
Temple  Grove  School,  114 
a  bad  report  from,  117 

Edhem  Pasha,  281 

Egerton,  Sir  Edwin,  285 

and    Miss    Maggie    Benson, 

303 
as  host,  308 
Egypt,  visits  to,  254,  308 
Epidaurus,  a  visit  to,  289 
Eton,     a     second     failure     fOr 
scholarship  at,   125 
Arthur  Benson  at,  87,    124, 
250,  318 
Etretat,  holidays  at,  86 


Fal,  the,  bathing  in,  100 

Ford,  Lionel,  headmaster  of 
Harrow,  226 

Frederick,  Empress,  and  au- 
thor, 284 

Friendships  of  schoolboys,  how 
made    and    how    retained, 

151 
Fry,  Roger,  and  the  Cambridge 
Fortnightly,  231 

Geoghehan,  Mr.,  fourth  form 
master  at  East  Sheen 
school,  83 

George  V  (then  Duke  of  York) 
dines  at  Lambeth  Palace, 
238 
(then  Prince  of  Wales)  and 
the  death  of  the  Duke  of 
Clarence,  277 

George,  King  of  Greece,  281 
an  audience  with,  282 
and  his  sister's  hat,  288 

George,  Prince  (of  Greece), 
284 

Germany,  Crown  Princess  of, 
and  Oscar  Browning, 
222 

Giles,  Mrs.,  her  day-school  and 
the  scholars,  41,  60 

Gimmelwald,  arrival  at,  133 

Gladstone,  Mrs.,  a  fateful  tele- 
gram from,  322 

Gladstone,  Right  Hon.  W.  E., 
a  dissertation  on  blotting- 
paper  squeezes,  267 
and  the  Chester  archaeological 
researches,  261 


332 


INDEX 


Gladstone,     Right    Hon.     W. 
E.— 

friendship  with  Mrs.  Benson, 
166 
Golf  on  the  snow  and  in  a  fog, 

176 
Goodhart,    Arthur,    at    King's 

College,  226 
Greece,  the  Court  of,  283 
author  in,  286  et  seq. 
the  spell  of,  308 
Greek  theatres,  German  theory 

regarding,  286 
Guinea-pigs  reared  by  Maggie 
Benson,  93,  94 

Halsbury,  Lord,  at  Lambeth 

Palace,  167 
Handel     Festival     at    Crystal 

Palace,  110,  II3 
Hare,  Thomas,  86 
Harrison,         Mrs.         ("Lucas 

Malet"),  reads  Dodo,  290 
Hatasoo,  Queen,  and  Sen-mut, 

316 
Hawarden,    author    interviews 

Mr.  Gladstone  at,  267 
Gladstone's   tribute  to   Mrs. 

Benson  at,  166 
Hawarden  Church,  tragic  death 

of     the     Archbishop     in, 

323 
Headlam,    Walter,    at    King's 

College,  226 
Henry  VI,  and  King's  College, 

Cambridge,  213 
Hobbies   as   a   preservative  of 

youth,  58 


Image  in  the  Sandy  The,  311 
Irish  tour   of  the  Archbishop 

and  Mrs.  Benson,  321 
Irving,    Harry,    recitations    at 
Marlborough  Penny  Read- 
ings, 202 

James,  Henry,  earlier  and  later 
works  of,  272 
reads  Dodo,  272 
James,     Monty,     Provost     of 
Eton,  as  mimic,  226,  229 
readings    from    Dickens   by, 
229 
Jungfrau,  the,  an  ascent  of,  in 
thick  snow,  249 
first  glimpse  of,  130 

Karnak,    excavations    in    the 

temple  of  Mut,  312 
Kenwyn    Church    and    its    or- 
ganist, 72 
Kenwyn  Vicarage,  63 
King  Dr.,  Bishop  of  Lincoln, 

trial  of,  250 
King's   College,   Cambridge,   a 
notable  life-fellow  of,  221 
eccentric.  Fellows  of,  214  et 

seq. 
glee-singing  at,  217 
life  at,  226  et  seq. 
the  chapel,  233 

Lake  district,  the,  a  wet  holi- 
day in,  209 

Lambeth  Palace,  dinner  parties 
at,  237 
Mrs.  Benson  as  hostess  at,  164 

Leigh,  Augustus  Austen,  Vice- 
Provost  of  King's,  216 


INDEX 


888 


Lincoln  and  earlv  emotions,  32 
et  seq. 

and    demoniacal    possession, 
52  et  seq. 

Sundays  at,  45 

the  Cathedral,  45  et  seq. 

trial,    the,    Archbishop    Ben- 
son and,  249,  253 
Lister,  Regie,  and  a  theatrical 
performance     in     Athens, 

304 
author  and,  306 
his  genius  for  friendship,  305 
Llandaff,     Hugh     Benson     at, 

Luxor,  a  stay  at,  310 
Lyttelton,  Alfred,  the  secret  of 
his  popularity,  305 

"Malet,  Lucas"  {see  Harrison, 

Mrs.) 
Mann,  Dr.,  234 
Marie,    Princess    (of   Greece), 

284 
Markham,  Admiral,  and  a  the- 
atrical     performance      in 
Athens,  304 
Marlborough    College,    an    in- 
dulgent house-master,  194 
author  at,  137 
author    promoted    to    sixth 

form,  190 
life  at,  138 

Penny  Readings  at,  201 
the  racket-court,  158 
unsuccessful  scholarship  ex- 
amination at,  125 
Marlburian,  the,  199 


Mary,  Princess,  Duchess  of 
Teck,  a  children's  party  at 
White  Lodge,  86 

Matterhorn,  ascent  of:  a  peril- 
ous descent,  241 

Megalopolis,  archaeological  ex- 
cavations at,  288 

Middleton,  Professor,  and  his 
love  of  archaeology,  255  et 
seq. 

Miles,  Eustace,  a  hoop-bowling 
run  with  author/'200 
a    unique    alliance    with    au- 
thor, 196 
his  aptitude  for  study,  243 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  86 

Mommsen,  Professor,  and  the 
Chester  archaeological  re- 
searches, 267 

Mountain-climbing,  131,  241  et 
seq. 

Murren,  lawn  tennis  at,  134 

Mycenae,  a  visit  to,  289 

Myers,  F.  W.,  an  original  verse 
by — and  a  parody,  261 

Naville,  M.,  his  explorations 
at  Deir-el-Bahari,  313 

Newberry,  Mr.,  and  the  Kar- 
nak  excavations,  313 

Nicholas,  Prince  (of  Greece), 
284 

Nixon,  J.  E.,  Latin  prose  lec- 
turer, 216,  231  et  seq. 

Nocton  expeditions  to,  ^^ 

"O.  B."  (see  Browning,  Oscar) 
Okes,  Dr.,  Provost  of  King's, 
217 


334 


INDEX 


Olga,  Queen,  283 
and  Dodo,  304 
Olympia  visited  by  author,  289 

Pain,  Barry,  his  parody  in 
Cambridge  Fortnightly, 
231 

Pall  Mall  Gazette  reviews  au- 
thor's Rubicon,  297 

Pan-Anglican  conference  at 
Lambeth :  a  story  of,  239 

Parker,  butler  at  Truro,  127 

Parody  and  parodists,  260 

Penny  Readings  at  Marl- 
borough, 201 

Perran,  picnics  at,  100 

Petrie,  Professor,  visits  to,  314 

Pharsala,  battle  of:  Edhem 
Pasha's  epigram  of,  281 

Photography,  first  efforts  at,  95 

"Pirates" — the  game  described, 
96 

Pitt  Club,  Cambridge  Univer- 
sity, 226 

Piz  Palu,  a  horrible  experience 
on  the,  263 

Poetry,  author's  early  efforts  in, 

93.  121 

"Poetry  games,"  93 
Pontresina,  an  unpleasant  ad- 
venture at,  263 
Press-cuttings,      unfavourable, 

297 
Printing  press,  a  primitive,  94 
Prior,    Mr.,    of    East    Sheen 

school,  83 

Racket    Court,    Marlborough 
College,  161 


Rawlings,  Mr.,  first  form  teach- 
er  at  East  Sheen  school, 

Reeve,  Rev.  J.  A.,  reminiscences 

of,  73 
Riffel-Alp,  climbing :  a  perilous 

descent,  241 
Riseholme,  enjoyable   days   at, 

53 
Rotten  Row,  exercise  in,  164 
Rubicon,   The,  publication  of: 

Press  reviews,  296 
Russell,  Mrs.,  author's  music- 
teacher,   and  a  tribute  to, 
80,  111 

St.   James's   Budget   and    The 
Rubicon,  299 

St.  Mary's  Church,  Truro,  100 

St.   Paul's   Cathedral,   Passion 
music  at,  112 

Saturday  Magazine,  the,  56,  92, 
176 
a  Swiss  edition  of,  243 

Savernake  Forest,  butterfly  col- 
lecting in,  146 

Schilthorn,  the  ascent  of,  134 

Sen-mut,     Egyptian     architect, 
316 

Sermon  paper,  a  new  use  for, 

92.  177 
Sharpe,  Mr.,  objects  to  hoop- 
bowling,  200 
Sidgwick,  Arthur  (uncle),  30 
Sidgwick,    Henry    (uncle),    an 
astronomical      poem     by, 

93 

visits  Wellington,  30 


INDEX 


835 


Sidgwick,  Mrs.,  18,  30 
Sidgwick,      William      (uncle), 

30 
Skating  under  difficulties,  176 
Skegness,  a  visit  to,  56 
Standard  the,  a  review  of  au- 
thor's Rubicon,  297 
Staunton  Prize,  the,  conditions 

of,  146 
Stephen,  J.  K.,  as  parodist,  257 
death  of,  263 
inaugurates  the  "T.  A.  F.," 

328 
personality  of,  259 
Sundays  at  Addington,  183 

at  Lincoln,  44 
Switzerland,  holidays  in,  129 

"T.  A.  F.,"  the,  at  Cambridge, 
229 

Tait,  Lucy,  a  tour  in  Algeria, 
276 
her  devotion  to  Mrs.  Benson, 
254 

Teck,  Duchess  of  {see  Mary, 
Princess) 

Teck,  Duke  of,  a  cigar  and  a 
squib,  86 

Temple,  Bishop  (afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury), 56 

Tennant,  Miss  Margot,  266 

Tennyson,  Alfred  Lord,  at 
Lambeth  Palace,  238 

Thothmes,  King,  and  the  tem- 
ple hieroglyphic  inscrip- 
tions, 316 

Thun,  lake  of,  130 


Tobogganing  under  difficulties, 

»75 
Torquay,  summer  holidays  at, 

56 

Toswill,  Mr.,  a  zealous  Alpin- 
ist, 240 

"Trojan  Queen's  Revenge, 
The,"  and  its  author,  156 

Truro,     author's     father     ap- 
pointed Bishop  of,  62 
erection  of  the  Cathedral  at, 

100 

Truro   Cathedral,   opening   of, 

235 
Tuck,  Mrs.,  75 

Vanity  Fair  reviews  The  Rubi- 
con, 297 

Vaughan,  Dean,  of  Llandaff, 
318 

Victoria,  Queen,  and  the  Arch- 
bishop's Algerian  tour,  277 
and  the  see  of  Truro,  62 

Vintage,  The,  how  and  where 
written,  31 1 

Voltaire,  M.,  French  master  at 
East  Sheen,  80,  83 

Waldstein,  Dr.,  255 

Waterfield,    Ottiwell,    and    his 
private     school     at     East 
Sheen,  80  ei  seq. 
as  elocutionist,  80,  109 

Waterfield,  Mrs.,  no,  ill 

Wellington     College,     and     its 
headmaster,  13 
the  dining-room,  23 

Westminster,  Duke  of,  an  inter- 
view with,  266 


336  INDEX 

White  Lodge,  Richmond  Park,  Wordsworth,     William,     Jim 

children's  parties  at,  86  Stephen's  parodies  of,  260 

Wilde,  Oscar,  a  tale  of,  300  World,  The,  on  The  Rubicon, 

Wordsworth,   Bishop,   of    Lin-  307 
coin,  52 

Wordsworth,  Mrs.,  and  family,  Zienal    Rothhorn,    the,    au- 

52  thor's  ascent  of,  243 


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